


Seven Gods

by Uzumi



Category: Homestuck, The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Chatlogs, Multi, Mute Davenport, SBURB, Temporary Character Death, and absolutely no boning, rated Mature for the character death stuff, there will be a lot of bonding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2019-04-19
Packaged: 2019-09-25 19:03:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 32,883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17126987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Uzumi/pseuds/Uzumi
Summary: Seven (young and not so young) adults were looking forward to a relaxing Saturday while playing this new game. Advertised as a "RL Sims"... probably a mixup of VR and RL. No big deal, still an exciting game to try.Less exciting are the meteorites that are heading their way.(Seven Birds play Sburb AU.)





	1. Multiplayer Dreams in the Making

**Author's Note:**

> I did my best to make this fic accessible to people who have never read Homestuck. Feel free to comment if you have any questions, I generally reply to those. 
> 
> Content warnings will be given when applicable. Generally: Everyone will die. Very often. I promise though, all Seven Birds will be alive by the end of the fic. You can imagine it similar to the Stolen Century.
> 
> Please enjoy the ride.

A young man stands in his bedroom.

Not quite.

A young man stands in his dorm room, he has been living in this room for the past two months and has made himself at home. Clothes of all colours and shapes were lying on every surfaces that the room had to offer. The room was made for two people; two desks, two beds, two closets. One of the desks was occupied by a sturdy laptop that seemed as if it could survive an apocalypse.

Over the desk was a cork board full of photos, there were twice as many pictures of the young man as one might expect. Upon further investigation it becomes clear that half of these must be his sibling. There were a few separate pictures of various people, although none of them were together on a group picture.

The man flung his bag in the corner of his room and checked his phone for all the notifications he missed during class. He didn’t bother turning on his laptop, it would take way too long to boot up. The notifications came from the Farspeech app, he had a single message from Lup and many from the server IPRE that he shared with his friends. First, he replied to his sister.

_Direct Message with Lup (online)_

 

Lup: are you there yet??

Taako: class went longer than it had any right to

Taako: but yea

Taako: im home now

While he waited for his sister to get back to him, he skimmed through the IPRE. Most messages were talking about the game that was supposed to be released tomorrow, Sburb. There was barely any information on the game except that it allowed multiplayer for an indefinite amount of people. Which was vague enough for their group to try it out, it was hard to find a good multiplayer game that supported seven players.

Lup: finally done with your nerd business

Lup: im already napping

Taako: k

Taako wanted to write a longer reply to his twin sister, but he would get that chance in a moment. Chatting with her was weird anyway, they had spent most of their lives sharing the same room. Until two months ago, they had never been separated for more than a weekend. Now, Taako had to live in the dorm of his college while Lup had a small flat in a city that was two hours away. Taako was terrible at dealing with the distance. Lup considered moving closer but she was still looking for an affordable place. For now they had to cope with it in their own way.

Luckily, the twins had a very unique way.

With a quick motion, Taako threw all his clothes and books from the bed and lied down. One day he would stop piling everything on his bed. Maybe. He fell asleep as soon as he closed his eyes, forgetting that train of thought immediately. This was pretty much the only advantage of college, falling asleep had never been easier.

Being asleep had changed drastically ten years ago. He used to have no dreams at all. People always told him that this was not possible, he probably forgot his dreams, but Taako was knew that he never dreamed as a kid — neither good dreams nor nightmares. This changed on the day his sister and him became homeless for the first, but not last, time in their lives. He started dreaming but in a way that was completely foreign to any dreams people ever talked about.

When he fell asleep in real life, he immediately woke up in a different room. It looked completely identical to his current room except that everything was coloured in cinnamon. The other difference was that his sister Lup was sitting on the other bed, looking through some of the books that were lying around. She looked up when she noticed him moving and said exasperated, “How do you read that without falling asleep?”

Taako sat down on “her” bed and leaned into her, she immediately put an arm around his waist.

“I am asleep right now,” he replied with a grin that made Lup roll her eyes. With a laugh he added, “you were always the more practical learner. But don’t worry, I’m sure Barry would show you all the practical applications of—”

Lup shoved him away while he wiggled his eyebrows.

“Keep Barry out of this!”

They engaged in a quick back-and-forth until they settled into an easy discussion about their day. Although this was supposed to be a dream, it was no different than sitting in a room with his sister. They each had their own rooms that were located in different towers that oversaw the whole place. The rooms themselves had been a mystery for years.

Lup started dreaming eleven years ago, a year before her brother did. She spent the whole time that other people slept in a completely red room that was foreign to her. Littered with clothes that wouldn’t fit her. Surrounded by pictures that showed her and Taako as adults instead of the teenagers they were, pictures of people who were complete strangers to her.

This happened around the time she struggled with her own gender identity.

Not quite (again).

She didn’t struggle with it, she knew she was a girl and everyone else decided to give her a hard time about this. At least her dream self was worth its name and provided her with a female body and a nice violet skirt (a skirt that she later traded for Taako’s violet pants, skirts were not very practical for doing sick flips). Everything in her room also indicated that it belonged to an adult woman.

Dreaming alone was isolating. Sometimes she heard voices that she couldn’t place. It wasn’t any language she knew, yet she could understand what they said when she focused on it. The voices resonated in her head, but she knew that they came from the Nothing she could see outside of her room. The sky had no stars, no moons, nothing.

Except sometimes she could see _something._ Vague shapes that resembled beasts with too many body parts, she saw tentacles and claws all at once. The voices became louder the closer — oh god why were they getting closer? — as the place moved towards them. And then it passed and the voices were gone. The place, tower she was in, circled away from the Horrors towards a ring of asteroids. This cycle happened repeatedly and Lup never got used to the voices getting louder as her tower approached the Nothing.

After waking up numerous times all alone, she finally explored the outside of her tower noticing with glee that she was able to fly. There were more violet towers close by that looked identical to her own. She was on a small purple planet(?) that was connected with a purple chain to a bigger purple planet(?). Huge white letters were floating over the bigger planet that spelled out “Derse”. If the planet she saw was Derse, then she must have been on Derse’s moon which was kept in orbit through the chain. Also everything was purple.

She visited the other towers on the moon. One of the towers had a light blue room with a little girl sleeping in a four-poster bed. She had black skin and looked younger than Lup. The room was full of books and self-written journals. Some sketches were lying around with photos of people next to them as references. Lup spent a lot of time there before Taako woke up, reading stories that didn’t make any sense to her. It wouldn’t be clear to her that she read the personal journals of a real person until she met Lucretia.  

Another tower had a sleeping young man, who appeared to be at least ten years older than Lup. His purple room didn’t have a lot in it, just a huge bed that gave a stark contrast to the shorter man, a closet that was filled with mundane clothes, his nightstand was full of pictures. One of the photographs showed a group picture of a wedding. Lup could find the man somewhere off to the side of the picture, it seemed to be a family portrait but the man must not be very close to them. It stood in the back row of his nightstand, overshadowed by individually framed pictures of six people. She recognised herself and Taako immediately and the others from similar pictures that she had in her own dream room. This was the only personalised aspect that Davenport kept in his bedroom.

The strangest sensation was finding Taako’s room. Or rather, finding Taako in a completely unfamiliar room. It looked like a dorm room and had all the books lying around that you would expect from college. Lup wasn’t able to read any of them, too boring to keep her attention. In later years, Taako would spend a lot of time reading them, what else was he supposed to do when he should be asleep? Which provided him with an easy scholarship once he applied.

She found the same pictures in Taako's room that she had found in every other room. Pictures of both of them through various ages, up to around 20 (23, as she would figure out later). Pictures of the same people she didn’t recognise yet appeared in every room. They seemed to be very close and Lup could only hope that these were her future friends.

There were also clothes that could not belong to him. Taako was sure that he was a boy, and there were dresses, skirts and makeup. It was obvious that she and him would share that room later on, it had two sets of beds, desks and closets. Although it was weird how empty the non-Taako side appeared to be. She told Taako all of this when she woke up the next morning, they theorised that Lup had a totally nice boyfriend by then and wouldn’t spend that much time in their shared room. Lup promised Taako that even a boyfriend — or a girlfriend — would never separate the two of them. 

Eleven years later, it would hit them hard when only Taako received the full scholarship. Lup would not share the dorm room with him. It had been hard to convince Taako to accept the scholarship and go to college without her. At the very least that explained why Lup had a separate dream room, it was the room she currently lived in while sharing an apartment with some strangers.

But until then, Derse was a nice comfort once Taako woke up. A comfort they needed after they lost their home and had to find shelter somewhere else. It was more fun to fly with him and explore Derse together. They sometimes looked through the other’s rooms but didn’t spend much time there. It took Lup a long time to notice that the voices were gone, that Derse’s moon didn’t cycle between pointing at asteroids, and an emptiness that was filled with Horror. Only the asteroids remained and Taako told her that he had never heard any voices from the Nothing.

* * *

In later years, they would make friends with the people in the pictures through various websites and online games. It was always a shock when those people shared a picture of themselves and revealed to be the same people that they knew from their dreams. In the end, there were seven people in their friend group whose pictures were hanging in both Taako’s and Lup’s rooms. Derse only housed four of them of which only Taako and Lup woke up. Lucretia and Davenport never showed any signs of knowing about Derse. Neither did the remaining three.

For now, Taako and Lup still enjoyed their time together while chatting with their friends. Everyone was excited to try out the new game, to finally have another good multiplayer that they could play together.

Tomorrow was going to be a long day.


	2. Virtual Reality but less Virtual

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Editing chapters is Bad and Boring, and I’m here to complain.

It was early, earlier than most people would dare to get up on a Saturday, but Magnus was excited and nothing could keep him down. Sburb was going to be released today — what game picks Saturday as its release date? 

Magnus was not a gamer at heart. He didn’t enjoy spending too much time sitting in front of his computer, he had to play most games on easy and he didn’t have the patience that was required in most multiplayer games. Because for some reason game developers thought that grinding items and levels would give people a sense of accomplishment.  

It was the best way to spend time with his friends, though. From an outside perspective, it looked like an unlikely friendship. Most of the people in his group were absolute nerds, even if they refused to admit it. None of their interests overlapped with all of them, some of them didn’t seem to have any overlapping interests at all. He still wasn’t sure what genres Merle enjoyed, his favourite games, movies, books and music appeared to be picked at random. 

So he got used playing various video games with them to spend time together. Sure, he could find friends that didn’t live all around America. He used to have some close friends in high school. But all of them faded and Magnus never felt any sadness when he realised that he hadn’t talked to his old friends for some months. Meanwhile, he started missing the IPRE crew after not talking to them for a few days. There was a connection between them that Magnus wouldn’t question.   

Instead, he decided to spend the morning working on his personal wood carving project. It wasn't something he was looking forward to even though he felt like he should. Professor Kristoph has taught him to attack the log until it becomes art, the first part came easy but the second never happened. Attacking the wood never felt justified, it didn't deserve any fury. 

While he continued contemplating the wood's punishment, his phone gave a short chime. 

_Direct Message with Davenport (online) _

 

Davenport: Sburb will arrive today?

Magnus: Yes! 

Davenport: I don't think we should try that game. Lucretia couldn't find any information on it, the development company nor the publishing company. There's nothing. Skaianet appeared out of nowhere and promised a game with impossible expectations. 

Magnus: I know!! You talk about it all the time

Magnus: The reviewers already said that it works, fulfils all promised features and whatnot. Just relax what's the worst that can happen 💁

Magnus: Stop typing. There's a lot, i get it

Davenport: If you understand, then why do you still want to play that game? The reviews said that none of them were able to progress. It sounds suspicious. Skaianet could collect information about our homes or attempt to monitor us. 

Magnus: Yeah, game journalists not being able to beat the first level is totally suspicious

Magnus: Besides, we got barry. He'll figure out if the game is a virus 

Magnus: And you know

Magnus: You don't have to play it if you don't want to

Davenport: I didn't intend to.

Magnus: Sure that's cool. We can play minecraft after we try sburb

Davenport: Just be careful. 

Magnus: I'll stay on my toes

Davenport: :-)

Davenport was by far the most cautious about the game. Lucretia was also suspicious but her curiosity was stronger. She was looking forward to play the game with everyone. Lup was always down to try new games and pulled Taako along with her. Merle was Merle, he would try any game people put in front of him. Never deterred, even after the twins got him to play Doki Doki Literature Club. 

Barry on the other hand attempted to figure Sburb out before they received it. Next to Magnus, he was the most excited. There was very little information available about it but everything that was available spoke of an impressive technological advancement that Barry had to get close to. Sburb will support an immersive local multiplayer experience with an indefinite amount of players. It has a hyperrealistic world building that is affected by the player’s actions. Lastly, it will improve on VR technology by using all senses including touch. 

To Magnus, this honestly sounded like a bunch of buzzwords thrown together but Barry had been making theories about the game for weeks. Especially after the first reviews came out. 

Magnus equipped his knife to continue carving the wood. The knifekind specibus was still new to him, he only acquired it recently for his wood carving course. Normally, a Strife Specibus like the knifekind would not be necessary to use an object, but his carving process was more akin to a strife. He was forced to get the specibus to attack the wood more effectively. This improved his knife-handling significantly, the carving results were still shit, though. 

Frustrated, he unequipped his grandfather’s knife and it disappeared back into his Strife Deck where all of his weapons were located. Magnus had an impressive collection of Strife Specibi he was able to use, like axekind and fistkind. The axekind specibus had a simple battle axe stored which was fairly old and should be replaced sometime soon. His fistkind specibus was empty, although he wasn’t sure what item could be placed in the Strife Deck. He couldn’t just unequip his own fists. Maybe some kickass gloves? 

Fists were a good weapon in a non-lethal battle, opposed by his kind-of-lethal battle axe. It was all about balance. 

He was cleaning the dirt caused by his wood carving activity when he felt the urge to check on his mail. He was sure there was nothing, he was at the outskirts of a small town, the mail wouldn’t be delivered until later. But Magnus would never fight his impulses. 

Magnus left his house to check the mailbox. It was weird living in a house on his own. He inherited it from his grandfather who recently passed away. Magnus didn’t have any close relatives, he wasn't sure if he had any parents at all. His grandfather had shown no indications of having any children. Of course Magnus had to have parents somewhere, it’s not like he landed on earth riding a meteor. Wherever these parents are, they missed an inherited house. 

Which they were probably very happy about because the house only had been trouble til now. Magnus had to wade through taxes and other costs while trying to figure out what to do with the house. He wanted to rent it out, he didn’t need a whole house on his own. At least not for now. He was living there to get it back in shape. There were various repairs that needed to happen and the house was overall a complete mess. Add Magnus non-business-like appearance and it became hard to find tenants. 

The mailbox contained a big envelope even though Magnus could swear that he hadn't heard a mail truck. Weird. Though not weird enough to keep his attention. On his way back he examined the new paint on the outside wall. Hopefully, a nice and bright orange will make it easier rent out. 

He retrieved his knife from the Strife Deck to open the envelope. It contained two CD cases that actually contained CDs. No download code, not even an activation key. Just two CDs. When was the last time he installed a game through a CD? One had a green house printed on it. The house was divided in seven blocks; six blocks were stacked in two columns with one elongated block on top of it. A roof with chimney was on top of the blocks. The other CD case had a circle drawn on it, with multiple circular shapes inside of it. It reminded Magnus of the drawings he made in math class with a pair of compasses. 

His phone has been notifying him of new messages for a while now. Magnus turned his computer on while checking on the conversation that was going on in the IPRE server. Lup and Taako were talking, which wasn't a surprise. Those two seemed to be awake at any given time. They were discussing something with Barry, Magnus didn't bother reading what was going on. 

_#general (IPRE), users online: Barry, Lup, Magnus, Taako _

 

Magnus: Hey guys

Magnus: I got the game 🎉

Barry: This early? That's surprising… oh well, give me the download link so I can make sure it's not harmful.

Magnus: Yeah get this: there's no download link. It's an actual cd

Taako: wtf

Lup: my laptop doesnt have a cd reader tho??

Magnus: F

Taako: f

Barry: Uh what. Okay? I'll send you an instruction how to open the CD content without running it. Just send me everything that's on it.

Barry: If there are any security measures, you'll have to wait til I get my own copy to crack it. 

Barry: Don't worry, Lup. I'll send you the ISO once I checked the program to make sure it isn't harmful.

Lup: niiice you nerds wouldnt win without me

Taako: 🔪

A different message notification informed Magnus that he had a Direct Message from Barry. As promised, Barry sent him a step-by-step instruction that Magnus was able to complete without any issues. He sent Barry the game files from both CDs, apparently a server and a client application.

Magnus: Did anyone else get their mail yet?

Lup: cant install a cd anyway

Taako: ill check in an hour when my alarm rings

Magnus: Your alarm?

Taako: uh yeah

Taako: my “time to be a functional member of society” alarm

Taako: every college student got one of those

The conversation went on for a while, Lucretia joined them just before Lup and Taako had to leave. Lup had a job and Taako had a group project. It was just Magnus and Lucretia for a while, who was always great company. 

They talked some more about Sburb. Lucretia tried to find information on it, now that the game was released. There were a handful of “guides” and discussions from people who had already started playing the game (and were less concerned about it being a virus). None of them had made any progress past a certain point. Lucretia was confident that they would crack the game, though.

Barry chimed in hours after his last conversation with Magnus. 

_#general (IPRE), users online: Barry, Lucretia, Lup (idle), Magnus _

 

Barry: I don't know how to explain any of this so I'll spare you the details.

Barry: The game wasn't saved as an executable, the CD contained the actual game code and the compiler to create the binary files. It was more like a storage system. I wonder if they sent you the wrong CD? I can't imagine the game to be open source.

Barry: Anyway, I looked through the code and it doesn't create any connections to the internet. So no information gets forwarded to the developer. Although, I also don't understand how it can be played as a multiplayer.

Magnus: You said you'll spare us the details

Barry: I'll tried to see if it takes control of other applications to

Barry: Oh.

Barry: I did say that. 🙃

Lucretia: I thought it was very informative.

Lucretia: At least it would be, if I'd understand what you're talking about.

Lucretia: Which I don't.

Barry: The server application looks safe. I haven't checked the client, yet.

Magnus: Cool, thanks

Lucretia: Thank you. 😊

Barry: Here's the download link for the server.

_[ Barry pinned a message to this channel.] _

Magnus: Can you set up the server and we'll connect to it? Like you did with minecraft

Barry: It doesn't look like it. There is no internet connection within the game, so I can only assume that everyone runs the server locally.

Magnus: Hm

Magnus: So lucretia could run the server and i'd connect through the client?

Barry: I don't know if the client is safe to run.

Magnus: I'm sure it'll be fine

Magnus: How much damage can it do?

Magnus: Stop typing

Barry: That's a terrible idea, just give me a few more hours and I'll make sure it's okay to install.

Magnus: Where's your lust for adventure??

Barry: Getting rid of malware isn't an adventure.

Magnus: Eh it's just my pc. Lucretia are you in?

Lucretia: I installed the server. 

Magnus: I love you

Lucretia: ❤

Lucretia: No hetero.

_[ Lup pinned a message to this channel.] _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Way too much work went into making the chatlogs “authentic to Homestuck”. I have an actual goddamn Python script that applies all necessary HTML tags. 
> 
> Homestuck stuff: Rereading the first Homestuck Act made me realise that Sburb does in fact need an internet connection. Uh. It’s a patched version. 1.3 update. Now with less network usage.
> 
> Hope everyone has great holidays!


	3. The Only Sims Game With The Goal to Survive

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lucretia and Magnus play a game.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No animals are harmed in this chapter.

Magnus started a voice chat with Lucretia while he waited for the client to setup. The installation proceeded automatically without requesting any login credentials or server IP to connect to. Once the installation was done, the window closed itself with no further instructions. Did it fail? Magnus was about to restart it when he heard a loud gasp from Lucretia.

“Magnus, is that you!?”

Not quite sure how to reply to it, he confirmed it with a weak “yeah?” Then he added, “did this game turn my webcam on?”

“Depends. Is your cam mounted to the ceiling?”

“What? Of course not!”

He looked around his room trying to find any kind of camera. The room had been freshly painted this week and nobody other than Magnus has entered it since then. A hidden camera was impossible.

“Okay, okay. Just follow my lead and you will look directly at it, okay? Okay. Look further up. More. Stop. Now turn to the left- other left. Stop, go back a— perfect. A tiny bit down. You're now looking into the camera.”

“There's nothing there. It's just a blank wall,” panic started to rise in his voice. Was someone spying on him and Sburb accidentally hacked the camera?

“MAGNUS!”

“Wha—”

“I can move it around freely! It looks just like The Sims.”

“But with better graphics!”

“No, everything's pretty blurry.”

“Hm. Can you do anything? Try motherlode while you're at it. I could use some cash.”

Lucretia wasn't sure who was more freaked out right now. Magnus who had his privacy violated or Lucretia who remembered all the various ways she got her Sims killed. Magnus sounded pretty chill, so it was probably her.   

She had made herself comfortable in her home office. Technically, her father's home office but she had seen him three times in the past five years. He had lost his claim on the room. Lucretia expected it to be a fun Saturday with the group goofing around in a new game, while she documented everything to write a guide. There were no comprehensible guides for Sburb and Lucretia wanted to be the first one who established herself in the market. So when Barry deemed the game safe to install? Lucretia was on it within a heartbeat.

Now she regretted not waiting for Barry's complete analysis. It wasn't obvious what had been going on at first. When the game launched it showed a young man sitting in a room in front of his computer. At first she thought this would be the introduction to the game. But the man didn't talk or turn to her. She took a closer look at him, what else was she supposed to watch? He had something familiar about him, but with his back facing her it was impossible to recognise him. Only when he stretched himself while Lucretia heard the groan through Farspeech did she realise.

“Magnus, is that you!?”

By now Lucretia has inspected the interface by hovering over all menu items multiple times. The first option was “Move”, this one seemed straightforward. Move an object around. Lucretia hasn't dared to try it yet but the familiarity felt comforting. The next one was “Revise”. It was most likely used to change the size or shape of a structure. “Deploy” was the next menu item. It felt strangely ominous, what item will be deployed if she clicked on it? The options proceeded to get worse. “Phernalia Registry”, “Grist Cache”, “Atheneum” and “Alchemize”.

“You still there?”

Magnus voice pulled her out of her thoughts.

“Yes, I was just thinking.”

“Can you do anything or not?”

Lucretia took a moment to consider her reply. She got lost in thought by the time Magnus called out again.

“Just do something! Don't leave me hanging like this.”

“I'm worried that I'll break—”

Magnus interrupted her before she could finish, “No problem, I can fix it! C’mon. Show me what you've got. You can't document anything if you’re sitting there doing nothing!”

Joke's on Magnus, Lucretia was very good at finding something to document. Of course he was right, though. Looking at the menu items won't reveal any knowledge to her.

“I'll try getting a book out of the bookshelf.”

She watched Magnus turn around to the bookshelf while she cautiously selected a book to pull it out— shit! The whole shelf fell to the ground. Did she accidentally grab it instead of a single book?

“I'm so sorry!”

“That was sick! You can move stuff around? Here try my chair!”

Magnus stood up and stepped away from the chair. Still connected to the voice chat thanks to his headset. Second attempt at this whole moving thing. She selected the chair and picked it up. It started floating in midair.

“Shit, this is so spooky! Anything else you can do?”

“Uhm,” she let go of the chair that immediately fell to the ground. “Oops. But yes, I have a bunch of options.”

She selected “Revise” and hovered with her cursor over the back wall of the living room. Magnus has been trying to rent the house for weeks, she didn't want to mess it up. She hesitated for another moment while she watched Magnus through the game application. He was looking around, waiting for anything to happen. Lucretia noticed that he switched to his phone, so he could walk around freely.

With a decisive move she finally dragged the cursor past the wall, expanding the room by a metre or two. Luckily, everything hanging on the wall moved with it.

“You can make the room bigger? Just like that?” Magnus went over to the wall to inspect it. There was no trace of where the wall used to be or where floor was added to the room.

“Holy shit,” whispered Magnus.

In the bottom right corner of Lucretia's screen appeared a resource bar. The blue gems went from 20/20 to 18/20. Still a sizeable amount to work with for home improvement.

Clicking “Deploy” didn't do anything on its own, so Lucretia continued with the next menu option. Next was the Phernalia Registry. It opened a dropdown with three weirdly shaped objects to select. The first was something called a Cruxtruder, then a Totem Lathe and lastly an Alchemiter. She felt once again overwhelmed by the choices.

“I've got a selection of three items but it doesn't say what any of them do,” she said before Magnus got impatient.

“Can you use them?” he replied while still inspecting the wall. He couldn't believe it wasn't an illusion.

“Clicking on it doesn't do anything.”

“Drag them?”

“Nope… Oh! I had to select it and click on Deploy. Careful, I'll place a Cruxtruder next to you.”

The Cruxtruder was a huge quadratic base with a short pipe on top. The pipe was closed with a lid, which Magnus tried to rip off, and had a valve on its side, which Magnus tried to turn after failing with the lid. At the base were four LCD screens, one on each side.

“Sooo how do we open it?” Magnus asked while looking around for a crowbar.

“Pulling it open didn't work, maybe pressure?”

Lucretia barely finished the sentence, when she saw Magnus grabbing the biggest book lying around and slammed it on top of the pipe. The lid popped open.

“Yes!” exclaimed Magnus.

“We solved the Cruxtruder puzzle!” added Lucretia. She loved working together with Magnus, he always did what she was too hesitant to do herself. 

A few things happened when the Cruxtruder opened. An orange glowing sphere flew out of it, making weird noises as if it was trying to talk to Magnus. There was a counter on the LCDs that started at 00:06:09 and counted down. Magnus was also able to see another orange object in the pipe. He extracted it by turning the valve. The object was a cylinder about the length of his forearm.

“That counter is making me nervous,” said Lucretia.

“Really? A timed mission right at the start?” Magnus looked around for the counter Lucretia was talking about. “Let’s hurry! You still have two devices up your sleeve?”

“Mhm, wait. I want to figure out the names of the circle and the cylinder.”

“Lucretia, there is a timer right next to me. It could be a bomb! Who cares about names?”

“I do! How am I supposed to document anything without knowing its proper name?”

“Do this after the bomb is disarmed!”

“Just give me a— Got it! F1 worked.”

“F1?”

“Yes, the universal support hotkey. Have you never accessed the help menu?”

“No.”

“How do you use new programs?” she asked exasperated.

“I try everything out and it works!” he replied equally annoyed, “the timer’s ticking!”

“The glowing circle is a Kernelsprite and the cylinder you’re holding is a Cruxite dowel.”

“That’s not what I need!”

“Right. I’ll place the Totem Lathe next. We need to make some room.”

Magnus was already moving the table, “Make the house bigger!”

“I’m not wasting resources on this!” Lucretia selected the fishbowl that stood on the table to place it somewhere safe. She was about to lecture Magnus on the fishbowl size, it was way too small for a goldfish. This train of thought distracted her enough that she didn’t realise she was moving the fishbowl right through the Kernelsprite.

A bright light emitted from it and the sprite changed its appearance. It was still a circle but it now had the drawing of a goldfish in it.

“WHAT DID YOU DO TO STEVEN!?” Magnus shouted at the same time as Lucretia said, “I don’t know what happened!”

“Where did he go!?”

“He just disappeared! I wanted to move him away so he wouldn’t get hurt—”

“Yeah he sure won’t get hurt now. Because he’s in the AFTERLIFE!”

“I’m so sorry, Magnus. I just tried to move him and it didn’t work— I’ll stick to reading the help instructions from now on,” her voice completely deflated by the end of the sentence. Both of them stayed silent as they looked at the Fish/Kernelsprite. It still made weird noises but they were different now. It would be described as fish noises if the author would have found any English onomatopoeia for it. 

“No, you’re right,” Magnus picked the conversation back up as if they haven’t been silent for - a quick glance on the countdown timer. Waited two seconds and said, “4:20”

“Ayyy,” came the conditioned reply from Lucretia.

“You’re right," he repeated as if the 420 joke didn't happen, "I told you to stop hesitating so much and do your thing. It was an accident. You wanted to protect him and it went wrong. Not your fault.”

Magnus sighed heavily. He was sad about Steven but he couldn’t stay angry. There was an ominous timer which was never a good thing in a video game. They needed to focus on that.

“I’m so sorry, Magnus. We can bury him— Did you name your goldfish after your grandfather?”

“Can’t there be more than one Steven on earth?”

“I… I guess? But did you?”

“… Yes.”

Well, there would be a second Steven funeral then. This made Lucretia feel even worse than before. She already knew Magnus got the goldfish to battle the loneliness of living alone in a house. It was something she could relate to very well. The fact that his goldfish had the same name as his recently deceased grandfather didn’t make this better.

“We should move on, there’s only two minutes left,” said Magnus after a long stretch of silence.

“You should leave the house and drive away as far as possible.”

Lucretia used more blue gems to make the room bigger. The Grist Cache called it “Build Grist” which seemed to be an appropriate name for the resource.

“No way! I'm not letting this thing destroy my grandpa's home.”

The Totem Lathe was a long and tall device that was placed. It resembled a very thin sewing machine that was huge enough to take up a whole wall. It had so many individual parts and valves that Lucretia couldn't describe it in detail in the little time that they had left. There were two round, flat plates though. The Cruxite dowel fit perfectly between them and Magnus placed it there with no hesitation.

Nothing happened.

He tried turning the valves and pulling the lever, but everything stood still.

00:01:23

“Why doesn't it do anything?” Frantically, Magnus moved the dowel around to be more centred.

“I'm looking at the help menu, it says I need a ‘punched card’?”

“Oh, I'm going to punch it real good.”

“I think that's it!”

A card fell down in front of him right as he was about to break his hand punching the Totem Lathe.

“Can you use the card on anything?”

Magnus picked it up and looked around the Totem Lathe. He found a slit and immediately jammed the card into it. An mechanic arm of the Totem Lathe started moving and fired a laser at the Cruxite dowel to carve a pattern into it. It was now shaped similar to a vase.

00:00:57

During that process, Lucretia placed the last available device: the Alchemiter. It was a huge platform with a circular plate on top of it. Next to it was a pedestal with a Cruxite dowel sized plate. Magnus grabbed the carved dowel from the Totem Lathe, still hot from the laser, and placed it on the pedestal. Another mechanic arm extended and scanned the dowel.

00:00:42

Magnus was positioned perfectly to look out of the window while the Alchemiter did its thing. At first, he was so tense that he didn't realise what he was looking at. Then it hit him.

Except not yet.

A meteorite was flying directly towards him.

00:00:29

The Alchimeter was finally done and a fully orange tree had grown in the middle of its giant platform.

“What the fuck!? Why is there a tree?” he heard from his phone, but he was still looking at the meteorite.

00:00:18

A meteorite was flying towards him and the only thing he had was a tree.

“MAGNUS!” 

Magnus finally moved into action. 

00:00:11

He did what he knew best.

00:00:09

He retrieved his battle axe from his Strife Deck.

00:00:05

Went up to the tree.

00:00:03

Raised the axe to strike.

00:00:02

And chopped into it.

00:00:00

A meteorite crashed into the ground, leaving a huge crate behind. The people living nearby might have remembered a small house that stood in that place. It was once inhabited by an elderly man and then passed down to his grandson. That grandson has put a lot of effort to fix it up.

The house was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :) 
> 
> I mixed up dads and thought Magnus’ grandfather was named Steven. He canonically doesn’t have a name. Oh well, he’s a Steven now. 
> 
> (Spoiler: Goldfish Steven ain’t dead.)


	4. You'll Burn That Bridge When You Get to It

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Magnus and Lucretia started playing a game, Sburb, that allowed Lucretia to manipulate Magnus’ surroundings. A meteorite was heading his way but finishing one of the game’s objectives made the house (and him) disappear… somewhere.

_ #general (IPRE), users online: Barry, Lucretia, Magnus _

 

Barry: The good news is, the game files are absolutely safe. You can install them if you want, here’s a download to the client.

_ [Barry pinned a message to this channel.] _

Barry: The bad news is, it doesn’t matter. The world is ending. Hurricanes, earthquakes, mass flooding is being reported all over the world. And even more surprising than that? Meteorites seemingly appear out of nowhere and crash into the earth. From reports it looks like one of these crashed into your town, Magnus.

Barry: Magnus, are you okay?

Magnus was okay. 

He has looked the meteorite directly into its eyes— crates when he chopped down the tree. He wasn’t sure what he expected, maybe a force field that would appear and protect his home. Maybe a laser that would shoot the meteorite out of the sky. Magnus did not expect the meteorite to simply disappear as if it never existed in the first place. That was one way to solve the problem. 

The Kernelsprite flew out of his window and divided itself into three parts, a white circle, a black circle and the remaining silhouette of his (former) fish. The white circle flew up into the sky while the black circle flew away over the—

Ocean.

Why was there an ocean in front of his house. There shouldn’t be an ocean anywhere near his house. His house shouldn’t be close to such a big body of water. Did it get teleported?

“Magnus?” he heard from his phone.

“Yeah.”

“Are you okay?”

He looked back into his house, nothing seemed out of line. There was an ominous feeling about it but everything looked like it did just a minute ago.

“I think so?”

“You haven’t moved in a while, the timer is up but it doesn't look like anything happened? Barry said there was a meteorite flying your way.”

“It’s gone now. But there’s an ocean in front of my house?” 

“You’re nowhere near the coast, though? Why is there an— WHAT THE HELL. Magnus, go outside!”

Please don’t let there be any more oceans. Magnus didn’t dare to look out of the window while he rushed towards the front door. Please don’t let there be any more oceans. 

There wasn’t another ocean. Technically. It was the same ocean he saw from the window in his living room. His house was in the middle of the ocean, floating on a wooden… duck? Unfortunately, things got even weirder. Wooden longcase clocks were floating all over the place. Some of those clocks big enough that they appeared to touch the floor of the ocean, sticking out of it and towards the sky. Some were big enough to be considered small islands, floating in the midst of the ocean. Regular sized longcase clocks formed lose bridges between those “islands”. 

The clocks were made out of different wood with varying designs. All carved intricately into the clocks. It was a stark contrast towards the crudely shaped wooden duck that his house was floating on. At least the duck didn’t move with the waves and held perfectly still. 

Over the sound of crashing waves he heard a muffled “Behind you!” from inside the house. Right, he didn't take his phone with him. 

Magnus turned around to head back inside, and evaded an attack only by sheer luck. An imp was standing next to him, preparing to attack him again. It was short enough to barely reach his hips and had inky black skin. Also the head of a fish. 

Was Steven back to haunt him?

He evaded the next attack effortlessly, retrieving his battle axe from the Strife Deck in a fluid motion. Magnus was in a foreign world, surrounded by nothing other than water and wood. He barely escaped a meteorite, while the earth back home was under attack from all forces of nature. An imp, a creature he only knew from video games, stood right in front of him. 

Nothing made any sense, but he had his axe in his hand and a foe right there. Magnus didn’t need to understand what was going on around him, he had a goal right there. With a quick “Sorry, Steven!” he axed the imp. Killing it with a single blow. He disregarded the blue gems that the imp dropped. A second imp appeared in his garden and Magnus charged it. 

Lucretia’s cries from inside the house went completely unnoticed. 

_ #general (IPRE), users online: Barry, Davenport, Lucretia _

 

Davenport: I can’t believe this is reality.

Barry: Hey, long time no see.

Davenport: I was busy this week but I was looking forward to a relaxing weekend. I should have used my vacation days instead.

Barry: You're not trying to find shelter either?

Davenport: I doubt any nearby shelters are meteorite safe. No, I rather spend my last moments on earth talking to the people that are most important to me.

Barry: That’s a nice thing to say in such a terrible situation.

Lucretia: Magnus is doing fine.

Lucretia: Stop talking like you're already dead.

Davenport: What’s left to do?

Lucretia: The game teleported Magnus away.

Barry: What?

Davenport: How is that possible?

Lucretia: Sburb

Lucretia: I can see him in a different place right now.

_ [Lucretia sent screenshot_1.png] _

Lucretia: His whole house moved into the ocean.

Lucretia: Away from any meteorites.

Lucretia: Meteorites have crashed close to me and the volcano looks like it's about the erupt.

Davenport: You live next to an active volcano?

Lucretia: I don't care if it's just a game, this looks like our only chance to survive.

Lucretia: I can't catch Magnus’ attention.

Lucretia: I’m in the collision course with a meteorite.

Lucretia: Volcano.

Lucretia: One of you has to be my server player.

Lucretia: Get me out of here.

Barry: Fuck, sure. We can try.

Davenport: I will be your server player. Barry, can you contact the twins and Merle? I don’t have their contact information.

Barry: And you think I do?

Davenport: I think you don’t it.

Lucretia: Davenport, N O W.

Davenport received an avalanche of DMs from Lucretia. She spammed him with the download link while also starting the call. Davenport started the download, he wasn’t fully convinced of Sburb and its purpose. But with all the catastrophes that were reported all around earth, who really cared if he installed a harmful program? Also Barry checked it and it seemed fine. 

If Lucretia believed this could save her life then it was worth a shot. He accepted the call and typed the text-to-speech message: “/tts I'm downloading it.” Which was read out loud by a male computer-generated voice. He got into the habit of using text-to-speech whenever he was in a voice chat. People tended to not pay attention to the text chat once they started a voice call, so he got ignored more often than not. TTS was a good way to avoid this. 

“Thanks.” 

Davenport was completely taken back by how wrecked her voice was. Crying had to be involved. It was also hoarse as if she had been screaming. He realised that she hasn't been assertive during their chat conversation. 

She has been desperate. 

“I sent you a screenshot with instructions,” her voice wavered as she held back tears. “First step: Revise my room to be bigger. It won't fit all devices otherwise. The controls work like The Sims.”

He typed in “/tts It's installing.”

“Good,” her voice broke, she cleared her throat and took a deep breath. “Second step: place the Cruxtruder, third the Totem Lathe. I will need a card, it's in the menu marked with a four then five. Your last step is to place the Alchemiter. I do everything else.” 

Davenport looked at the screenshot, he should be able to follow these instructions.  

“Sounds easy, I'll get you out of there,” was read by text-to-speech. Lucretia let out a breathless laugh. 

He typed: “/tts It’s ready.” 

Lucretia connected to him immediately. Davenport took in a sharp breath when he saw her on his screen. He should have expected it after getting a screenshot from Lucretia that showed Magnus, it still took him off-guard to see his friend from a perspective similar to Sims. 

For a moment, longer than Lucretia liked, nothing happened. She was about to repeat her instructions when Davenport finally made her room larger.  _ Yes. _

Another moment without movement made her anxious again. Was that how Magnus had felt earlier?

“I can't place the Cruxtruder,” the robot-voice seemed to be oddly familiar with the pronunciation of Cruxtruder. 

“Click on 'Deploy’ next to 'Revise’.” 

The Cruxtruder appeared in her room. Lucretia grabbed her chair and slammed it on the lid. The force was enough to open it. A turquoise Kernelsprite flew out of the pipe just as the Totem Lathe was placed. 

00:01:56

She sighed out in relieve. That was enough time, she knew what she was doing. Lucretia turned the valve to get the turquoise Cruxite dowel out of the pipe while Davenport searched for the punched card. 

Lucretia jammed the dowel into the Totem Lathe, picked up the punched card and inserted it into the slit. While it carved the cruxite, she grabbed a brown teddy bear named Cam from her desk. Cam wore a white shirt that said “Hug Me” and was one of the few reminders of her mother. It was the last gift from her. Lucretia offered it to the Kernelsprite in a sign of solidarity to Steven and Magnus. She threw Cam into it and the Kernel changed its appearance to a plush bear. 

“I'm done!” came from her phone.   

“Perfect.”

Lucretia hurried back to the Totem Lathe and picked up the carved Cruxite dowel— Hot. “FUCK! Ow!” It fell to the floor. Why did it have to be carved by a laser? She picked it back up, this time more prepared for the burn in her hands. 

The Cruxite dowel fit perfectly on the pedestal of the Alchemiter. It will create a huge tree and she will figure out how to cut it down. Everything will be fine. 

00:01:02

There was no tree. The Alchemiter created a turquoise shelf full of books with a single one lying on the Alchemiter in front of it. Was that a reference to the bookshelf she broke in Magnus’ home? Was she supposed to do it again? 

00:00:47

Lucretia shoved the bookshelf from behind and it fell down on top of the book. Nothing happened. 

It wasn’t supposed to go like this. 

00:00:41

“Help me pick it back up,” she barely recognised her own voice. Hoarse from screaming. Wavering from crying. Shrill from panic. It took a moment for Davenport to follow her instruction, throwing it away rather than simply picking it up. Neither of them cared. 

00:00:29

The Alchemiter was covered in books that spilled from the shelf. She didn't know what to do with them. Magnus destroyed his tree, was she supposed to destroy those books? She can't. Books and journals mean so much to her, they were her constant companion. 

She was good with books, she should be able to figure it out. 

00:00:16

Every book had a different genre, there was nothing that connected them. She had never read any of them.  

00:00:13

There were many ways in which she could sort them, nothing felt right. 

00:00:11

Nothing stood out.

00:00:09

There was a journal. 

00:00:08

She grabbed a quill that was lying next to her. 

00:00:06

Dipped it into the broken ink bottle. 

00:00:04

Opened the journal.

00:00:02

Signed her name. 

00:00:00

Everything went dark. 

This was the preferred alternative to “and then a meteorite crashed into the house”, of course. Sitting in the dark didn't mean that everything died. Only that the sunlight was gone. She could still see shapes, so her house was most likely still standing. 

Lucretia wasn't able to look out of the window from where she was sitting on the Alchemiter. Her first attempt at standing up failed horribly, her legs gave in as if she had ran a marathon. 

She shook her legs to try again. She had to see for herself that she was in safety and everything would be fine. 

The second attempt went okay, she clutched her phone as if losing it would mean the end to her salvation. Breathe in, breathe out. Three large steps and she made it to the huge window front. The curtains were drawn close, watching the meteorite stopped her from thinking straight and she needed that. 

The curtains opened.

Trees. That was pretty much the only thing she saw. Technically, she only saw the tree trunks, the crown was so high up that she had to lean out of her window to see it. There were also glowing rings floating above her house, it was the same pattern that was used in the loading screen of the game. It was a circle with more circular patterns inside of it, looking like something she’d do with a pair of compasses out of boredom. She wondered if Magnus had the same thing. 

While at it, she also assured Davenport that she was safe, thank you, yes it went well and there’s no meteorite and no— There’s a volcano. It’s still there. It has calmed down though and didn’t look like it would erupt any time soon. At least that’s what she hoped for, there’s a lot of wood here which would burn violently.

She ended the call with Davenport and grabbed her laptop to check on Magnus. He was hunched over his computer keyboard, so at least it’d be easy to get his attention.

Except it was Magnus who has been trying to get her attention instead. 

_ Direct Message with Magnus (Online) _

 

Magnus: Hey, sorry, i forgot to take my phone with me

Magnus: I read the ipre chat. I’m so incredibly sorry i didn’t hear you

Magnus: Please tell me if everything went well?

Magnus: And i guess don’t if you’re dead

Magnus: Fuck that’s a real possibility now isn’t it? That one of us dies?

Magnus: Fuck

Magnus: Please message me

Lucretia: I made it.

Magnus: YES

Magnus: FUCK YES

Magnus: I’M SO GLAD

Magnus: I WAS SO WORRIED

Magnus: I mean, i totally trusted cap'n port

Magnus: But still

Magnus: 🎉🎉🎉

Lucretia: He did a great job. 🙂

Magnus: So you’re now in the ocean?

Lucretia: No, I’m in what looks like a rain forest. Only more extreme. I’d send a picture but it’s too dark to see anything. Hardly any light passes through those trees.

Magnus: Oof

Magnus: I’d love to trade with you, tho

Lucretia: I wanted to ask, do you have any circles flying above your home?

Magnus: Yeah, they look like the logo on the server cd

Lucretia: Oh?

Magnus: Which was also on the kernelsprite now that i think about it

Lucretia: We should look out for that symbol, it seems important to the game.

Lucretia: Do you have any pictures of the symbol?

_ [Magnus sent DCIM_687.png] _

Magnus: Here are both cd envelopes, haven’t seen the house symbol anywhere tho

Lucretia: Thank you.

Lucretia opened the text document with notes she made before Magnus cut his tree down. She had more information to add, it would help her dealing with what happened in the last few minutes.

Now if only her hands could stop shaking. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A slightly different take on “The Wordless One”. 
> 
> Cam is the guy from Wonderland who stayed behind when Lucretia escaped. (Wonderland is of course not a thing in this story, I just wanted to clarify where I got the name from.)


	5. Don't Lose Your Head

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Meteorites are crashing into earth, coincidentally right on top of people’s homes. The game, Sburb, was able to get Magnus and Lucretia to safety(?). Just install and play it, you’ll be good. Probably.

_ #general (IPRE), users online: Barry, Davenport, Lucretia, Lup, Magnus _

 

Lup: im runing home

Lup: streets b locked

Lup: has ta reply

Lup: replied

Barry: No, I can’t reach him. Neither him nor Merle.

Lup: fuc

Lup: k

Barry: When will you be home?

Lup: idk

Lup: its hell

Lup: everons panicking

Davenport: We’ll get you out of there! It worked with Magnus and Lucretia.

Barry: She made it?

Davenport: Yes, I can see her right now. She’s chatting with someone.

Barry: @Lucretia everything’s fine? And @Magnus while we’re at it. Haven’t seen you in a while, either.

Lucretia: Yes.

Magnus: Yeah, i was busy fighting imps

Davenport: Imps? There are monsters in this game?

Magnus: They’re weak don’t worry

Magnus: Oh yeah, lucretia are you able to fight those

Lucretia: Of course! I’ve got my staffkind and featherkind.

Magnus: How do you fight with a feather

Lucretia: 🙂

Davenport: We should share the games with other people so they can escape. Barry, you have the links to the download? Contact news stations to distribute it.

Barry: It could be worth a try.

Lucretia: It won’t work.

Lucretia: Davenport, you saw the Cruxite dowel and the Kernelsprite coming out of my Cruxtrude.

Lup: tf r these words

Davenport: I’m not sure?

Magnus: Orange cylinder and glowy circle that came out of the pipe

Lucretia: It was turquoise for me, but the point still stands.

Davenport: I was too focused following your instructions, so no.

Lucretia: Okay, anyway. Those items are necessary to complete the procedure. I’m not sure what role the Kernelsprite plays, but it’s impossible to do anything without the cruxite dowel.

Lucretia: I looked through all existing guides again and none of these people have gotten the necessary items out of it. Even though they were able to open the Cruxtruder.

Lucretia: We were the only ones able to succeed.

Barry: Let’s hope that it isn’t just the two of you who were.

Lucretia: You could bring Davenport in.

Davenport: I’m in no immediate danger. It’s best to wait for the remaining three and see who needs to be brought in next. I have the feeling we’re supposed to build a chain.

Barry: Sounds good to me.

* * *

_ Direct Message with Magnus (Online) _

 

Lucretia: We should compare notes now that we’re both in here. That way the others will be prepared when they join us.

Magnus: Sounds good

Lucretia: What happened after we lost contact? I saw you fighting Imps but I had to get going.

Magnus: Uh yeah i’ve been fighting a bunch of those

Magnus: Completely black imps with fish heads

Magnus: RIP steven 😭

Magnus: Oh wait

Lucretia: I’m so sorry about that.

Magnus: Check out steven²sprite

It took Lucretia a moment to realise that Magnus was not sending anything past that, but invited her to watch him through the Sburb client. She switched to the window to check on him. The living room was empty, so she quickly looked through the house and then outside where she finally found him. 

Together with an orange… ghost? That had two fish heads? 

Lucretia: Is that Steven²sprite?

Magnus: Yeah! When i got teleported to the medium, the uh kernelsprite got divided in 3 parts

Magnus: Black and white part flew off to wherever and stevensprite remained!

Magnus: And then he touched a mirror…..

Magnus: So he’s steven²sprite now

Magnus: Apparently, that’s what happens when a sprite that has only been prototyped once touches something

Magnus: Now he’s my loyal companion who gives me information! at least as much information as a fish can provide

Magnus: He can talk, tho

Magnus: You should talk with your sprite, too!

There were Imps knocking on Lucretia’s door that she had to take care of. Magnus was right, they weren’t particularly challenging. A swift strike with her staff was enough to knock one out. More surprising was their design. She has seen Magnus’ Imps that had varying fish features, usually the whole head or fins that were useless in a fight. Now there were Imps with teddy bear features on top of fish Imps, most of them wearing Cam’s Hug Me shirt. The pure teddy bear ones were borderline adorable. The ones with a teddy bear head and fish fins were the easiest enemies anyone could ask for. 

A teddy bear Imp with realistic fish eyes was the worst thing she has seen in her 18 years. 

Lucretia: The medium?

Lucretia: Yeah, I’ll talk with mine once I find him. Thanks for the heads up.

Magnus: That’s what steven²sprite calls the place here. I guess you could call it The Game instead

Magnus: Which you have lost btw

Lucretia: I cannot believe you pulled this in 2019.

Magnus: The medium contains like everything? my planet and now yours

Magnus: OH YEAH

Magnus: We’re on different planets, mine’s called land of ducks and longcase clocks

Magnus: The “clocks” isn’t actually included in the name. It’s just ducks and longcase

Magnus: But whatever. It’s my planet, i should get to name it.

Lucretia: In that case, I’ll assume mine is called “Land of Trees”.

Magnus: lol

Magnus: I asked steven²sprite and it’s land of jellyfish and exploration

Magnus: HEY can we trade??

Magnus: Yours sounds hella fun

Lucretia: I’ll tell you once I find the jellyfish between all these trees.

Magnus: Nice

Magnus: Have you found your sprite?

Lucretia: No, but a lot of Imps. I think I levelled up four times by now.

Magnus: Congrats!! I’m at lv 12 rn. Wonder when i’ll get new gear

There was nobody on the first floor, the floor where Lucretia spent most of her time in, so she checked the second floor. There were mostly bedrooms here. Lucretia checked the guest room first. There were some Imps that she could ignore, but no sprite. The bathroom had Imps flushing stuff down the toilet. She hasn’t been using this bathroom in years, so it was mostly old stuff. Nothing of value was lost. Her parent’s room was locked. 

The only room left was her own. The room was clean, similar to all other rooms in this floor. Nobody has been actively using it for years. In the middle of the room was a four-poster bed which has been a gift from her father after her mother has passed. It was his attempt at helping her sleep. Lucretia’s own solution was to avoid this room altogether. 

There were a lot of journals she had written through her childhood and teenage years. On her desk was an unfinished journal, the last entry was in 2012. That journal and many other journals that preceded it were all talking about her mother who was slowly dying. It had been too painful for her to finish it, so she started a new one when she began spending more time downstairs. 

Against the wall, opposite of the desk and bookshelf, was another shelf with a huge wardrobe standing next to it. The shelf itself housed a multitude of plush animals and dusty figurines. Between them sat Cam. He sat on his old spot that he used to occupy when Lucretia still used this room. Cam has noticed her by now and was floating towards her with his arms outstretched as if going in for a hug. 

Lucretia was about to make a step towards him, but a feeling in her gut stopped her. Magnus’ sprite had been combined with a mirror after Stevensprite touched it. 

_ Magnus: Apparently, that’s what happens when a sprite that has only been prototyped once touches something _

Would she merge with Camsprite if she touched him? Was she willing to stay around and test it? 

Hell no. 

Lucretia turned around and bolted out of her room, back downstairs. Camsprite following her. She has seen Magnus touch Steven²sprite so would it be fine after prototyping Camsprite a second time? What should she prototype her sprite with? 

“Cam!? Cam, please wait!”, she shouted back at him, in hopes that he would understand what was going on. He didn’t seem to understand her. 

_ Magnus: Now he’s my loyal companion who gives me information! at least as much information as a fish can provide _

_ Magnus: He can talk, tho _

If Steven²sprite was able to talk to Magnus, then what’s the issue with Camsprite? Steven was a fish, a very young fish who was living in a fishbowl and wouldn’t have survived more than a week. He wasn’t that much smarter than a teddy bear!

He had a brain, though. Cam didn’t. Shit. 

Lucretia tried juking Camsprite at the couch to avoid him but he simply flew over it. Forcing her to keep running away. Did she have anything with a brain lying around in this house? Anything that was alive or maybe has been at some point? 

No animals. She never owned any, so no animal corpses either. Camsprite has followed her into the office. Lucretia crawled under the desk and Camsprite immediately lost the trail. Yeah, definitely no brain in there. She ran back out. 

No other humans in the house and even fewer human corpses. The house has been built during her lifetime and the only person who has died in here had been her own mother. 

Huh. 

Lucretia tried to remember what happened to her mother after she died. Her mother had been cremated but she didn't remember where the urn was now. She has never seen it around the house. Except maybe for her parent’s room. The room that even her father doesn’t enter during the few times that he visits. She had to get in there. If this would work, she’d get her own mother back as a guide!

While she was thinking about her next move, Camsprite has left the office and was flying towards her. Still on his mission to give her a hug. Lucretia tried running upstairs but he blocked her way. She backed away, right into pedestal that made her lose balance. She fell to the floor next to it. 

Bad: The cactus that stood on top of the pedestal, the only plant that she had been able to keep alive, fell down. Good: She managed to catch it without hurting herself. Bad: She was still on the floor. Terrible: Camsprite was directly above her, leaning down. 

???: Lucretia chucked the cactus against him to get him away from her. Which caused a bright light, that was comparable to her sudden flash of realisation. Her idea was ruined. 

In front of her hovered Camtussprite, happier than ever and still leaning down to hug her—

“OUCH! STOP!”

Spines dug into her, Lucretia tried pushing him back with her staff which resulted in numerous scratch marks where he had held onto her. 

“LET GO!”

He did not let go.

* * *

_ #general (IPRE), users online: Barry, Davenport, Lucretia (idle), Lup, Magnus _

 

Magnus: @Davenport could you check on lucretia?

Magnus: She’s not replying and i’m kinda worried

Davenport: She’s in her living room. Cuddling with a… ghoul? No, it looks like a ghost.

Lup: is she havn sex with a ghoul

Magnus: So she’s fine?

Lup: ghost w e

Davenport: She looks like she’s in pain, but not in any particular danger.

Magnus: 😕

Davenport: I really hope not, at least while I’m still looking at her. She’s half my age, that would be extremely inappropriate.

Lup: more inapp than sex with ghost

Barry: How close are you to getting home?

Lup: not clos enough

Barry: Fuck.

Lup: taco?

Lup: lol

Barry: Still nothing. I looked up news in his area and his college was evacuated due to a sudden hurricane. It’s possible that I can’t reach him because he has no network connection.

Davenport: Hurricanes usually aren’t sudden.

Lup: but hes alive

Barry: Most likely, he should have been in a college building when shit went down.

Barry: What the FUCK is Merle doing, though.

Somewhere in Hawaii stood a man. You see, this man has always regretted buying a house on top of a mountain. He moved to Hawaii for its beaches but ended up all the way up here. Today was the first day where the man was relieved to live so high up. From the safety of his greenhouse he was able to see most of the island. 

At least what was left of it. The ocean was raging below him, it took a whole town with it and the sea level was creeping closer towards this man’s house. He sees the apocalypse happen and there’s no place left to escape. Turning back to his plants he sighed. 

What will this man do? 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The MOST useless thing I found out writing this fic: American homes are designed with a closet in mind which is then build-in. Wardrobes are less common. 
> 
> Is it a homage or an insult that I turned Cam into a teddy bear?


	6. Is It Candlenights?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sburb provids its players with Sprites that function as guides. The player decides which properties their Sprite will have by prototyping it with two objects. An object that is capable of thinking is strongly preferred. (Teddy bears are not capable of thinking.)

Lucretia could not, simply _could not,_ believe the turn of events. Not only did her Sprite get prototyped with a cactus instead of the (hopefully existent) remains of her mother. The new formed Sprite also attempted to hug her at any given time. With its spines.

That’s not the worst part though. Lucretia can deal with sacrificing her unscratched skin, she would be fine. The worst part was that Camtussprite was unable to talk.

From the information she received from Magnus, her Sprite was supposed to be a guide. It was supposed to explain her mechanics and how to progress in the game. Give her some necessary information or help out in a fight. Instead it attempted to hug her at any given time. She could be fighting an imp and instead of helping her, it started hugging her. Causing more damage to her than the imps did.

She went back into her office and slammed the door shut before Camtussprite could enter. Obediently, he stayed outside of the room despite being able to pass through objects. Lucretia found out that he can pass through objects because his fist is passing through the door as he attempted to knock. Camtussprite himself was not aware of this, though.

Back at her laptop, she looked through all the notifications she missed. Her phone was with her but she had been too busy to check on it while running away from Camsprite. IPRE was full of messages, she skimmed through it and replied with “I did not have a sexual experience with a ghost”.

There were some new messages from Magnus, she scrolled to where she left.  

_Direct Messages with Magnus (idle)_

 

Lucretia: No, but a lot of imps. I think I've levelled up four times by now.

Magnus: Congrats!! I’m at lv 12 rn. Wonder when i’ll get new gear

Magnus: Like what game leaves you without new gear until lv 12

Magnus: I know i technically don’t need it, the imps are so weak. It’s just on principle

Magnus: A sickass new axe would be great

Magnus: I actually started using fistkind to make it more challenging

Magnus: Btw for the record, it's not the same kind of imps anymore. They sometimes got bear faces? And a hug me shirt

Magnus: Steven with a hug me shirt is the best

Magnus: But idk why it started

Lucretia: Did it happen around the time when I joined the medium?

Magnus: Hey there! How did it go?

Magnus: Uh, hard to tell. Idk when exactly you joined. Maybe?

Lucretia: Bad. I have a cactus that wants to hug me.

Magnus: Aww that's adorable!

Lucretia: I've got the same imps you're talking about. It appears they were influenced by prototyping the Sprite for the first time, but not the second.

Lucretia: I need to write it down. Can you see if you find any other information?

Magnus: There's nothing here! I've been walking around this house since forever and the only notable thing is the gate

Magnus: Can you build some stairs or something??

Lucretia: I could, but I think it's too early to progress.

Magnus: Oh c'mon!!

Lucretia: Let's see if I have anything else I can do.

Lucretia: That's a Punch Designix, can you play around with it?

Next to Magnus appeared a piano-like device with a keyboard attached to it. There is a diagram etched in the panel that looked like instructions.

The first step was taking a card. It was the same card that Magnus inserted into the Totem Lathe to carve the cruxite, except the picture showed it without holes. This kind of cards are also used to store his weapons in his strife deck. It was very convenient to have a whole arsenal within a few cards.

Second step was to turn the card around. Magnus took one of his strife deck cards and turned it around, there were waves and shapes of colour and among them, barely readable, GkbS77jl. Distorted like a captcha code so computers couldn't read it.

Next step showed the keyboard, so Magnus entered the given code.

Last step showed to insert the card. And done.

There was the sound of a hole puncher and true enough, the card has been punched with holes. Which made it impossible for Magnus to retrieve the axe from the card.  _Oops._  It now looked exactly like the card he inserted into the Totem Lathe though, so Magnus did the same now. He also retrieved a new cruxite from the Cruxtruder so it could be carved and started the process. The carved cruxite had a different pattern from the one he used to enter the medium.

Magnus used the cruxite in the Alchemiter which costed some grist. The laser arm extracted and scanned the cruxite, creating an axe out of seemingly nowhere that was identical to the one he used at the beginning of the process.

He attempted to store it in his strife deck but nothing happened. He needed a captchalogue card to store an item and he had just punched through his. He had no available ones left to use, except maybe the one associated with his fistkind. Ugh, there had to be a way to get new cards. 

Captchalogue cards were a very recent technology that was still too expensive to be widely spread. Those cards can be used to store any items within reason, a collection of these cards is called located in the captchalogue deck. It could be compared to an inventory in a game. Magnus hadn't considered it worth the cost.

He had a strife deck, though. Captchalogue cards from the strife deck could only be used to store weapons he is proficient with. That way they were easily available in case of a fight, while a captchalogue deck was slower to access.

Both decks combined form the sylladex. Magnus’ sylladex currently consist out of approximately five captchalogue cards that corresponded to his six strife specibi. The only card missing was for the axe. He needed at least one more card to fill his strife deck. 

Magnus: Lucretia, i need to bounce some ideas off you

Lucretia: Okay, what is it?

Magnus: So the punch designix that you placed can be used to carve completely new totems

Magnus: That the alchemiter uses to make new objects. Like it made the tree

Lucretia: I'm not sure I follow.

Magnus: Okay yeah. Captchalogue cards have this code on their back you know? This code states what's in the card. You can enter the code in the punch designix and BAM it punches the card. Then you use the punched card to create the item that was punched into it

Magnus: But what's the point? I'm just losing a captchalogue card to create an object that i already had

Lucretia: Hm, maybe in case you want multiples of the object. Maybe you can also manipulate the punch code so you get a different item instead?

Magnus: I'd LOVE to try that but i don't have enough cards left

Lucretia: Do you only need the code to create objects? An empty captchalogue card is 11111111.

Magnus: How do you know that?

Lucretia: I have a few cards lying around. I captchalogued one and that was the code. Please tell me your results when you're done experimenting.

Magnus used his empty fistkind card to punch a 11111111 into it. That way he would only lose the card, not any item within the card. He had to spend more grist to create multiple copies of a captchalogue card but the result was worth it. He had his full strife deck back and captchalogued the battle axe he created earlier. There were also enough cards to build an actual captchalogue deck to captchalogue all kinds of items. Magnus was excited to see what else the Alchemiter was capable of.

He looked around for an interesting object to play around with. Most items were common household ones so the one uncommon one stood out far more. A boomerang hung at the wall. Magnus captchalogued it and punched the card. The punched holes showed a different pattern than his axe. Overlaying both of them left some holes but not many. Curious, Magnus tried carving a cruxite from both cards staying overlaid. The resulting cruxite had a lot less curves carved into it. Placing it on the Alchemiter resulted in an axe with a curved handle.

Lucretia: The Boomeraxe.

Lucretia: I get an overview when you use the Alchemiter. It just told me Boomeraxe = Battle Axe && Boomerang, cost: 8 build grist, 13 shale grist

Lucretia: I'll write this down for the journal.

The Boomeraxe was surprisingly good at flying back at Magnus, probably better than any boomerang he has thrown. Magnus was a lot better at catching boomerangs than sharp axes, though.

Next thing he wanted to try was applying the holes from both cards on one. He took the card that had the boomerang code punched into it and punched the battle axe in addition to it. The card had nearly the doubled amount of holes now.

Lucretia: Battle Rang = Battle Axe || Boomerang, cost: 3 build, 10 shale

It was the axe blade in shape of a boomerang. Nope, not throwing that death trap.

A Boomeraxe was great but hardly practical, as long as Magnus had to risk his hand to catch it. He also wasn't that good at throwing axes. It wasn't a skill that came up a lot. He was good at throwing lances, thought.

Combining a lance with a boomerang proved itself to be a mistake about 0.5 seconds after Magnus threw it. There goes that window.

Magnus wondered what way he could improve his axe. There was a lot of wooden architectures on his planet and Lucretia's was full of trees, something closer to a lumberjack axe would be useful. How does one teach an axe how to lumberjack? He was sure that there was such an axe somewhere in the basement, but Magnus didn’t want an actual lumberjack axe, he wanted a battle axe that was able to absolutely obliterate any kind of wood that gets in his way.

Video games usually used skill books to magically teach a character something, maybe he could teach an axe the lumberjack skill, too.

Magnus: Lucretia, can you pick up the shelf?

Magnus: The one you knocked over

Lucretia: I can’t figure out how to rotate the shelf. Hm.

Magnus: Eh, just keep it floating there while i search for a book

Lucretia: No way, I’m busy. I’ll put it down somewhere else.

Magnus: Okay, fine

Lucretia: Oh.

Magnus: What

Lucretia: The shelf out of your way now.

Magnus: Yes, i see that

Lucretia: You should also never look for it ever again.

Magnus: Lucretia, did you throw my bookshelf into the ocean??

Lucretia: I thought I’d have a bigger range! It suddenly let go of the shelf, because I went to far away from you!

Lucretia: The controls are hard. 🙁

Magnus: Don’t make that frowny face, you know i can’t stay angry at that

Lucretia: 🙁

Magnus: Fiiiiine. Thank you for your help

Lucretia: 🙂

Magnus: ❤

On the floor, next to the place where once a bookshelf stood, were several book lying around. There were also wooden figurines that Magnus’ grandfather has carved and some more delicate trinkets that are now broken.

Magnus looked through the pile of books in hope of finding anything promising. “Outwitting Squirrels,” was the title of the first book but luckily this didn’t seem necessary, there probably weren't any squirrels in clocks. Lucretia might need it, though. “The Big Book of Lesbian Horse Stories,” were the horses lesbians or the riders? Why did his grandpa even have that? “Fancy Coffins To Make Yourself,” hopefully this _won’t_ be necessary.

“A Gentleman’s, Gentlewoman’s and Gentlebeing’s Guide to Choose the Correct Tools for Wood Chopping, Wood Working and,” the title continued on the back of the book “Wood Polishing While Not Damaging Any of Your Tools”

That sounded promising enough and Magnus was excited to try it out instead of looking through the piles of books for any more weird titles. There was no need to ruin more of his memory about grandpa. Magnus captchalogued the book, read the code and then punched an empty card so he wouldn’t have to waste the book itself. He tried both to overlap the cards and to double-punch one of them. He had more than enough grist after levelling up so much.

Lucretia: A Gentleman’s, Gentlewoman’s and Gentlebeing’s Guide to Choose the Correct Tools for Wood Chopping, Wood Working and Wood Polishing While Not Damaging Any of Your Tools, Edition: Axe = Battle Axe || A Gentleman’s, Gentlewoman’s and Gentlebeing’s Guide to Choose the Correct Tools for Wood Chopping, Wood Working and Wood Polishing While Not Damaging Any of Your Tools, cost: 10 build, 17 shale, 5 amber grist

Lucretia: Fuck that author.

Magnus: Did you type the name twice?

Lucretia: No, there’s an “Edition: Axe” at the end.  

Lucretia: Battle Axe of AGGaGGtCtCTfWCWWaWPWNDAoYT = Battle Axe && AGGaGGtCtCTfWCWWaWPWNDAoYT, cost: 5 build, 8 shale

Lucretia: That was more work that copy-pasting the title.

The second axe had still the shape of his battle axe. A long haft, the blade started out thin and widened significantly at its edge. The most notable difference was the new pattern on the axe which was taken from the book cover and now decorated the whole thing. It had a leafy design that was pretty but not what he was looking for.

The axe was also made out of the book cover, which wasn’t sturdy enough to keep the blade in place. Definitely not what he was looking for.

First axe, the “Edition: Axe” axe, also received a decorative redesign although simpler this time. A vine ranked around the haft towards the head and two flowers bloomed into each blade. That was the other change, in addition to the first blade was also a second sturdier blade. It kept a consistent width through the blade’s short length. It was in the shape of a feller axe and wouldn’t get stuck in wood the same way his battle axe would.

He immediately run outside to chop something. There were a lot of chopable things on his planet, for one the duck his house was standing on. But it felt like that duck had a deeper purpose than trying out his new weapon. The nearest longcase clock was way too far away and there were no trees on his lil duck island. The house’s railings were made out of wood, though.

Magnus didn’t hesitate to use his new acquired axe on the railings and it split it in half with barely any resistance. He had chopped wood before, he knew how it felt like and he could estimate how much force he had to use to cut through the railing. The axe needed a lot less force than it should. It was like cutting gift wrapping paper when he hit just that sweet spot that made the scissors glide.

There was a notification sound from inside the house and Magnus went back to reply.

Lucretia: Did you leave your phone behind again.

Lucretia: You need to stop doing that.

Lucretia: Can you alchemize anything to keep it on you at all times? Like you know, you’re supposed to do with a phone??

Lucretia: At least captchalogue it!

Magnus: Good idea, i could make my own google glasses

Magnus: Do you have a google pixel?

Lucretia: Why would you need that?

Magnus: It won’t be google glasses if i use an android for it

Lucretia: Pull a Taako and create your own brand. Look up, not even the sky is a limit.

Lucretia: How did the axeperiment go?

Magnus: Terrible

Magnus: Your pun, that is. One of the axes was trash made out of book, the other is pretty sick

Magnus: I’m calling it railsplitter

Lucretia: That’s a lot better than AGGaGGtCtCTfWCWWaWPWNDAoYT, Edition: Axe.

Lucretia: Now make those Magnus Glasses.

Lucretia: Magnus Glasses = Android && Shades, cost: 10 shale, 5 amber, 2 tar grist

Magnus: That’s not its real name

Lucretia: You’ll have to read my journal if you want to know the actual name. :)

Magnus: You’re mean and a bully

Lucretia: Burnshades = Magnus Glasses && Headset, 12 shale, 10 amber, 4 tar

Lucretia: You’re nearly out of amber grist.

Magnus: My only saviour from your names

Magnus: Time to grind some imps with my new shiny railsplitter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shoutout to my dear friend @[thefourthpurpleone](https://thefourthpurpleone.tumblr.com/) for enduring my endless ramblings and providing me with ideas. I'm p sure I would have deleted this fic if not for you. 
> 
> It took me forever to write this chapter, because it was so hard to accept that I would never create anything as amazing as:  
> Hammer || Iron -> Wrinklefucker
> 
> All book titles except for the longass one are for real, btw. In case you need any of them.


	7. Build-A-Ship Speedrun

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Barry will do today's summary.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter used to have Machine Learning stuff in it, you can thank me for realising it's the worst thing you can put into a fic and removing it. Barry also explains the core mechanics to Sburb, this is mainly for people who aren't very familiar with it and can be skipped otherwise.

_#sburb (IPRE), users online: Barry, Davenport, Lucretia, Lup, Magnus_

 

Davenport: This channel is for Barry, Lucretia and me to share important information with everyone, so it doesn’t get lost in #general.

Davenport: Lucretia is going to post updates to her journal and Barry will sum it up to its most important parts. Read his messages, it should only take a few minutes.

_[ Lucretia sent sburb_v1.txt]_

Barry: @everyone Summary:  
\- Sburb will teleport you to safety if you follow these instructions  
\- Install the client application, link here  
\- You need a server player, they can download the app here  
\- The current Client ← Server chain is following:  
Magnus ← Lucretia ← Davenport ← Barry

Once you have established Client/Server, the Server has to do the following steps:  
\- [1] Revise the room to make it bigger  
\- Click the [2] Phernalia Registry, deploy [3] Cruxtruder, [4] Totem Lathe, [5] Alchemiter close to each other  
\- Click [6] Alchemize and give your Client player the Pre-punched Card

Barry:

Barry: Client player:  
\- Open the [3] Cruxtruder by hitting the lid with a heavy object, the timer on the Cruxtruder is counting down towards your death. You need to finish the last step before it runs out.  
\- A Kernel gets released (it’s a glowing circle) throw in an object that is bad at fighting to prototype it. We don’t know why this is necessary, but according to Steven²sprite it is.  
\- A Cruxite dowel can be extracted by turning the valve. Get it out.  
\- Put the cruxite in your [4] Totem Lathe, insert Pre-punched Card into slot.  
\- Put the carved Cruxite on the [5] Alchemiter  
\- The last step seems to vary, but an object will appear on the Alchemiter and you need to figure out what to do with it.

Barry: After you enter the Medium (= the actual game):  
\- There are monsters you have to fight, stay alert  
\- Prototype your Kernelsprite… Sprite? With something that can THINK and speak and you get yourself a guide.

 

_#general (IPRE), users online: Barry, Davenport, Lucretia, Lup, Magnus_

 

Lucretia: @Barry, you’re Davenport’s server player?

Davenport: Yes, it started getting hot here. We have to move forward. I still have some time but we didn’t want to risk it.

Barry: Don’t waste that time.

Lucretia: Understandable.

Lucretia: It’s a great summary, Barry.

Barry: Thank you for documenting everything meticulously.

Davenport heard his phone vibrate to notify him of further messages, but he had to stay focused on his current task. Barry would inform him if anything needed his attention. Right now, he was standing in front of a giant glass bottle that appeared on top of the Alchemiter. Next to it were purple wooden objects that suspiciously looked like parts of a ship. A smaller ship, that was still bigger than a normal ship in a bottle ship should be.

Which was unfortunate, Davenport would have been good at building a ship-in-a-bottle-sized ship in a bottle. His hands were the perfect size for that and he had an infinite amount of patience and control. It would have been a breeze. Instead he had a bottle that was big enough for him to climb into, tools that were hard to hold for a long duration of time, and ship parts that were _heavy_.

On top this, the ship was too big to build outside, lie the mast down and move it into the bottle to raise its mast. He had to build the whole ship inside. At least he was making good progress. The first half of entering Sburb can be done within a minute, no problem. Thanks to Lucretia’s instructions.

Barry had written a whole guide with the help of her journal by the time he was halfway done with the ship. It didn’t take as long as he dreaded to, all parts were prepared and he only had to place them. Still, there were only 15 minutes left. They shouldn’t have postponed to start the session for so long.

His phone was lying next to him, Barry was on speaker and kept him updated with the others. Magnus has started playing with Alchemy? Apparently the game lets him combine items to create something new. Lup would be home soon, but still nothing from Taako. Lup told him not to worry about it, she had a way to contact her brother if nothing else worked which was a relief. Still nothing from Merle. Magnus made a boomerang axe? That sounded dangerous.

Davenport knocked on the glass twice to get Barry’s attention and then signed “Help me out. You need to hold this while I climb in to fasten it,” in the direction that he knew Barry was watching from.

“In a moment.”

He kicked against the glass to make sure Barry was still watching and then signed angrily: “A moment? I have ten minutes left. Help me out!”

The tool next to him was starting to float and Davenport positioned it where he needed it to be. This way, Davenport could wedge his upper body inside the bottle to bind together the bottom part of the ship that Barry held in place. He wanted to know what was so important to Barry that he wanted to make Davenport wait, but his hands were busy right now. He climbed out as soon as he was done and signed a quick “Thank you” to Barry and then added, “What were you doing anyway?”

“Prototyped your sprite,” Barry replied.

“It was already—” Davenport was stuck at the word “prototyped”, that was something he had never needed to sign. He spelled it out and Barry interrupted him at “proto”.

“Yes, once. I want to know what happens if you prototype it twice before entering the medium.”

“What did you use?” he signed.  

“It was suggested to use something that is able to think in some capacity. Unfortunately, there's nothing in your apartment that fits this description,” Barry stopped talking while Davenport added the first mast to the ship. This model had two masts, one of which was done now.

Davenport made a hand motion to prompt Barry to continue talking.

“So I used your Amazon Echo.”

Davenport stared at the remaining part of the ship, not moving a muscle, contemplating whether it was worth entering the medium if it meant listening to Despacito for the rest of his existence. He wished he was deaf instead of mute.

“Why would you _do_ this?” he signed with very exaggerated movements.

“There was nothing naturally intelligent in your apartment, so I used artificial intelligence.”

“Nothing will be left once the twins get their hands on this!” his movement became borderline sloppy. Barry had to ask him to repeat himself and Davenport did so but more careful this time.

“It’ll be fine, they won’t find out.”

“What about the I-M-P-S in this game? Don’t they get properties from P-R-O-T-O items?” he really needed to make up signs for these words, he had never had to say “imps” in a normal conversation. And even if he had, he doubted Barry would know the sign.

“Just the first one,” and after a short pause, “I think.”

“You think.”

“Why did you have an Echo anyway?”

“My brother gifted it to me,” he signed offhandedly.

Barry seemed to hesitate with a reply, so Davenport added, “I can kind of use it with T-T-S, but the usage is limited.”

“At least there’s not way for it to spy on what you say.”

This made Davenport laugh. He had already wasted enough time, though, and should get back to the ship. It’s not like anyone can travel back in time to prevent Barry from prototyping it anyway. But he hesitated to insert the mast into the bottle. This didn’t feel right.

After some contemplation, Davenport knocked against the glass to get Barry’s attention. “I don’t think this is what I’m supposed to do.”

“Then don’t,” said Barry.

“But what else are you supposed to do with a ship? Other than build it?” Davenport looked at the countdown. Not good.

“Sail it?”

“It’s not a real ship, it’s way too small.”

“Not for you.”

“Not in that bottle!”

“Hm.”

Davenport’s eyes went wide and he looked around his living room. He had to get the ship out of the bottle. There wasn’t enough time to get each part out individually, he had to smash the glass to make it work. His living room was a mess, he was in the middle of renovations (for the past two years) and multiple tools were lying by a wall that leads to a unused guest room. Among those tools was a sledgehammer. It was supposed to be used on said wall but Davenport was a busy man.

He grabbed the sledgehammer— fuck, it was heavy. There's no way he'd be able to effectively use it. Somewhere between those tools should be an— Aha! Davenport found the hammerkind strife specibus and added it to his strife deck. Not something he could see himself use often but it would do for now. He captchalogued the sledgehammer and got back to his project of a ship-in-a-future-former-bottle. Barry must have seen what Davenport had planned and built some stairs up the bottle.

The height of the stairs was perfect for Davenport to get in position. He retrieved the sledgehammer from his strife deck, which nearly fell down immediately. Barry caught the hammer and helped Davenport to get it high up.

“You know, I could break the bottle by smashing the Cruxtruder on top of it?” Barry asked as Davenport took his first swing.

Davenport shook his head, Barry was not the one who was supposed to break this. The first hit didn't seem to leave any trace on the glass so he and Barry repeated the procedure.

Nothing. Again.

Less than two minutes left.

Nothing. Again.

Nothing— A crack! It was thin, so Davenport almost missed it. They readied another swing and Davenport made sure to hit the same place a second time. The line became longer. Another hit and a second crack split from the first.

Together, Davenport and Barry aimed for the connection point and the bottle shattered into an unreasonable amount of pieces. It was like the scene from Spongebob where he made a whole marble sculpture by hitting one point. Except there was a ship instead of a statue and that neither Davenport nor Barry had any time to appreciate the parallel. The meteorite that headed towards him was visible through the window, he didn't need a countdown to tell him that he only had mere seconds left.

Davenport grabbed the second mast from the floor. He ignored the glass that cut him, the blood that was running down his hands. He jumped on top of the ship. The shattered glass crunched underneath his shoes. He steadied the mast. And slammed it into the holding on the ship's deck.

The burning light of the meteorite illuminated the scene as the ship had been completed. Blood was smeared on the purple mast, where Davenport lost his grip. Pieces of glass rained on the floor as the ship vibrated. Before the meteorite could scratch the surface of the apartment wall, requiring more renovations than Davenport could handle, the building moved out of the meteorite's way.

“Timer’s up and you're still alive. So this worked?” could be heard from somewhere to Davenport's right. He tried giving a thumbs up to Barry but his hands were still cut and moving them that way would hurt. Shit, he hoped the glass didn't cut to deep. He still needed those hands to communicate.

Davenport nodded to Barry while he went to the bathroom. His left hand had one cut through his palm, he really hoped that no glass got in that wound. The right hand had a few smaller cuts on thumb and index finger.

Some imps got in his way, but he shook his head and motioned towards the door. They complied and left his apartment. It was easier to examine both hands under the bathroom light. Not easy to finding splitter in a bloody wound, though. He washed it with warm water to get a better look, they seemed clean enough so he applied pressure to stop the bleeding.

Waiting for the bleeding to stop could take some time. So he walked back to his phone and kicked it closer to his bed to sit down. He slowly typed a message with one finger: “reaching into glass ws a mistake”. It was too much work to type “/tts” but luckily, Barry was paying attention to the chat.  

“You should have let me pick it up.”

Davenport thought about this before he replied with: “didnt feel right nd no time to think”

Barry sighed, “It worked out, I guess.”

“my hands r an issue”

“We'll— uh. We'll figure this out. Listen, I'm sorry but I gotta go. Lup's here and we need to continue the chain.”

“ofc”

“Talk to you later,” Barry ended the call.

Davenport sighed. His hands still hurt and typing with one finger was bothersome. He needed to look for bandages, Davenport can't communicate without his hands. (How could he have been so reckless?)

On the way to a first-aid kit, he walked past a window that overlooked his planet. And as if Davenport didn't have enough of ships, he was on a planet that was similar to Magnus’ in the middle of an ocean. Except in this world, normal ships sailed on the calm water. The ships further away started losing their shape and blended in with the background.  

Land of Ships and Mirages.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again to @[thefourthpurpleone](https://thefourthpurpleone.tumblr.com/) for convincing me that Barry should 100% know ASL. This chapter would have been a lot worse without that.
> 
> I also had to edit this chapter twice because I messed up. I hope I caught all mistakes the second time around.


	8. Don't You Hate It When You're On Your Way To Work And The World Ends?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know you’ve lost control of your fic and life when you have to make a timeline for every character to know which events happened simultaneously. I had to know how long Lup has been running, it felt like she’s been running for 6 hours but it was only like 1. 
> 
> This happens when a character has been running for like 6 chapters.

Lup felt like she had been running for at least six hours now. Her lungs were burning, the smoke surrounding her, produced by flaming buildings and cars, didn’t help with the whole breathing issue. The city was a wreck. People were running around mindlessly. There was no place considered safe but anything felt better than just standing and waiting. Lup had to push through the masses running around, no common goal in mind and acting accordingly.

The last hour - she couldn’t believe it had only been an hour - had been hell. She had just left the parking garage and was on her way to her second job of the day. The whole day had been cloudy, so Lup was more than confused when she left the parking garage and a bright light was shining in the sky. Getting bigger with time and coming too close for comfort. She put more distance between herself and the building just as she heard an explosion behind her. The ground shook while she tried to stay on her feet. The building behind her crumbled under its own weight. It was nearly loud enough to drown the screaming from passersby. Cars screeched to a halt to see what was going on.

Lup turned around to see the damage for herself. Dust was shooting up from it, the building wasn’t done collapsing and there was very little chance that her car actually survived. Hopefully, her insurance would pay for _that._

Another explosion, more screaming. This time it was farther away. Lup wasn’t able to estimate how far exactly, but she didn’t have to run from it. That’s a plus. People around her were running though. No clear direction, everyone seemed to follow a blind panic. A third meteorite crashed into a building down the street.

Lup looked up in the sky, only a strip of sky was visible through the skyscrapers. It was still cloudy, but another meteorite could be seen falling through the blanket of clouds. It crashed.

She had to get out of town. It was too dangerous to stay between buildings, hoping that none of them would land on her. She was barely able to see where the meteorites were heading from where stood. Would she be able to run away from them on an open field? Maybe not, but it had to be a better chance at survival.

Except that there was no quick way out of town. She was pretty much in the centre of it. The roads were useless as cars crashed into each other from getting distracted and scared by the meteorites. People running in all directions, none of them had any idea where they’d be safe.

This was when she heard her phone ring. It must have been ringing for a while, actually. It was just impossible to hear with all the noise going on around her.

“Lup!? LUP! …okay!?” it was hard to hear who she was talking to.

“No, I’m fucking dead!”

“Okay,” she didn’t think the person - Barry? - heard her “I’ll try…, stop… rambling,” definitely Barry.

“Louder!” she shouted into her phone.

“The world… ending—”

“No fucking shit!” Lup interrupted immediately.

“—but… and Lucretia… survive! …Sburb? Magnus and…,” there was a long silence. Lup only got less than half of what Barry said, it looked like her connection was cutting off.

“I don’t hear shit! Keep it short!” she shouted back.

“GET HOME, INSTALL SBURB TO SURVIVE,” was the very loud and suddenly very clear instruction.

“Okay!?”

Lup ended the call and started running in the direction of her apartment building. This didn’t sound like a realistic way to survive an apocalypse, but standing around wouldn't to her any favours either. Also, meteorites crashing down out of nowhere weren’t very realistic if you think about it. She was pretty sure NASA would have been able to see them coming. 

Walking home wouldn’t be a problem on a normal day, it should only take her half an hour at most.

If it weren’t for the whole city getting in her way.

Most streets she passed were either void with cars or filled with abandoned ones, there had been so many accidents that it had been futile to continue driving. Some smaller streets were still in use and the cars there drove with no regards for other human’s life. The purge has began and Lup was pissed that she had to spend it running a marathon. Pedestrians were an issue, too. All of them got in her way, running against her, blocking her way or outright pushing her. Lup did the same thing back, of course.

The journey that was supposed to only take half an hour stretched over an hour. She didn’t have the stamina to run that long, so she had to power-walk some of the distance. She was glad that the people who’ve seen her walk like that were too busy with themselves to pay her any attention. Power-walking was a nice way to keep up with the IPRE server. Magnus and Lucretia were safe, Davenport and Barry were in no immediate danger, no trace of Taako or Merle.

Lup had tried calling Taako herself but she wasn’t able to reach him. Barry said there had been a hurricane, but he should be safe in the college building. His battery might be empty, though. He never paid much attention to it. Worst case scenario, she would wake him up on Derse, to tell him to get the fuck home. No big deal.

That’s what she told herself.

There were less explosions near her apartment. The sky was still covered in clouds, so she couldn’t tell if there were any meteorites heading this way. It didn’t matter though, she had to get home, reach Taako and get away from this planet. Now.

She called Barry while running up the stairs. He appeared to be in a voice call, but Lup made it quick. Mostly because she was completely out of breath and very close to collapsing right there.

“Barry, I can reach Taako. What should he do?” she said between quick breaths.

“Same as you, he needs to get home, install the game and we can get him out of there,” she heard a muffled “then don’t” after he said that, probably to whoever he was in a voice call with.

“And what do I need to do?”

“Have you read the Sburb channel in—” another muffled “sail it” and he continued “read the channel? It has an instruction on eve—” a slightly annoyed “not for you”.

“I looked over it.”

“Hm,” and then, “I think we need to continue the chain. So you need to be my server and then Taako can get you into Sburb. Does your surrounding look safe enough for that?” there was another muffled sentence that she didn’t pay attention to.

“Fuck if I know, how long does it take?”

“Magnus made it in six minutes, Lucretia less than two and Davenport is currently at 13.”

“The building survived an hour, what's another 10 minutes? See ya.”

She ended the call and lied down as soon as she reached her floor. Everything hurt. She set an alarm for three minutes, should be enough to take a nap and get Taako updated. The floor was nice and cool on her burning hot skin.

She woke up on Derse. Her dream self was perfectly fine, no sore legs or burning lungs. The transition back to her normal body would be terrible. For now, she had to wake up Taako. That was something they had discovered years ago, if their dream self was forcefully woken up, then their real self would fall asleep as they woke up on Derse. This had been an amazing cure for any kind of issues falling asleep they were facing. And opened a lot of opportunities to prank each other, as they were stuck in the dream self state until their real self woke up for any reason. Lup hasn’t thought that one through. Hopefully, Taako was surrounded by people who would be suspicious of him passing out and would try to wake him up.

She flew to his tower in record time and slapped him full force for three points of dream damage. Taako didn't get any time to figure out what's going on before Lup asked, “Where are you!?”

A few seconds confused silence, then, “On Derse?”

“No! Your real body, where are you?”

“Oh. There was an evacuation. Wind was suddenly _pretty_  wild, looks like there's a surprise hurricane? Why?”

“You're not safe there! And neither am I! There are meteors everywhere, Lucretia and Magnus nearly died through them.”

“Fuck.”

“But they survived! Sburb is apparently some magic bullshit and teleported them into another universe. Where they survived!”

“Oh sure, _magic_.”

“Just… get home. You need to install Sburb and join us.”

“Are you _insane!?_ ”, Taako threw his hands up, “You're telling me to leave the shelter, run through a goddamn hurricane to play some magic game?”

He started pacing the room while Lup was losing her patience. They don't have any time to argue.

“If you want both of us to survive, YES! I'm in the middle of a fucking meteor shower, I'm dead if this doesn't work out. And I need you to make it work!” her alarm would ring in a few seconds. “Please get home.”

The scene shifted and Lup was back in the apartment building, lying right in front of her door. Every part of her body screamed as she stood up. An explosion was heard from somewhere, the meteorites were coming closer.

She had to lean against the wall while opening the door, her legs were too shaky to hold her weight. Getting up after a break was unbearable torture. The apartment itself was empty. Her flatmates must have been out when all hell broke loose and either didn't consider their apartment safe or weren't able to make it here.

Another explosion. It was probably deemed too dangerous.

She made it to her own room and called Barry while her PC booted up. Taako was shown as online, so at least he made it out of the shelter. With any luck, it's close enough to his dorms that he'll be there in ten.

“Hello Lup,” came from her phone’s speakers, holding it caused unnecessary pain.

“Sup?”

“Davenport made it.”

“Taako is running home.”

“Do you have any idea how to reach Merle?”

“Nope. Server is installing.”

Lup used a button on her mouse to increase its sensitivity, anything to make her move her hand as little as possible. Why didn't the apocalypse happen while she was still at home? Why were her arms tired anyway, it’s not like she needed those for running. (She had needed those for pushing people out of the way. To catch herself from falling. At one memorable occasion she helped lifting up some debris that trapped another person. Hopefully, they have made it to some kind of safety.)

Barry's instructions were opened on a second monitor. The server part looked easy enough, place everything and watch the client player struggle. No big deal. Maybe she'd be able to pawn all of her client player duties off to Taako. The server player should be able to do most of the work.

“Connected. Oh shit, I can see you!”

This was one of the three bedrooms that Lup hasn't been able to visit on Derse. Barry had a studio apartment which looked more like a storage unit than an inhibited place. The only visible furniture were a bed, a closet and a huge desk with chair. The remaining space was used to store all kinds of old computer and other mechanical parts that Lup couldn't identify. Some old books on programming languages that she had never heard of were stacked on the desk, but it didn't look like he brought any new ones recently. The kitchen looked barely used.

“Fellow gamer, it’s time to get this rolling.”

She watched him snort.

Lup stopped wasting time looking around, and placed all required devices into the room. She looked at the instructions that Barry had to follow, to see where she could help out. Open Cruxtruder with something heavy? Check. Although Barry looked upset about her using one of his spare PCs. He had more than enough of those. Putting the dark blue cruxite dowel in the Totem Lathe? Check. Barry threw something into the kernel. The dark blue glowy circle got brighter for a moment and then changed the symbol in the middle to a… captcha code?

“What did you do with the kernel?” she asked while both of them waited for the Totem Lathe to finish carving. 

“That’s kind of a long story,” he was visibly uncomfortable while he talked into his wireless headset. It was weird being able to watch him while they were on call. Barry avoided all kinds of video chats, so she only saw him on photos.

“We got time til Taako gets home.”

“Right,” he didn’t continue until Lup placed the carved cruxite dowel on the Alchemiter. “Davenport and I tested,” which usually meant that Davenport got involved without any choice, “how it would affect Sburb if we prototype the sprite twice before entering the medium. It seemed like an interesting thing to know. Turns out that all prototyping that are applied when you enter the medium, get applied to the enemies too.”

“What?”

“If you prototype the kernel with an object and enter the medium, then the enemies gain all kinds of properties from that object. Magnus prototyped a fish and Lucretia used a teddy bear. Which honestly, pretty good. Makes for weak as fuck enemies.”

“So you made them a captcha code why exactly…?”

“One of the prototypes should happen with a sentient object. That way your sprite will be able to help you out.”

“That doesn’t—”

“I used an Amazon Echo on Davenport’s.”

A stunned silence and then a whispered “holy shit.”

“In hindsight, not the best idea.”

“This is _so sad_ ,” she said with a glee that was unfitting for the state of the world.

“That’s why I prototyped mine with a captcha code generator, maybe that way the enemies won’t be able to access any Echo features themselves.”

“You’re trying to prevent a GLaDOS kinda enemy by making it ask question like ‘click on all cars’?”

“Exactly.”

This made Lup laugh which in return made Barry blush. In an attempt to distract himself, he realised that he had no idea how much time he had left. Everything was very quiet, so it didn’t seem like the end of the world is anywhere near. It was still important to know.

He looked at the counter.

An hour left.

Everyone until now entered the Medium at the last second. Barry was not expected to enter for another hour.

What the fuck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This needed so much editing, holy shit. 
> 
> Prepare yourself for a boss battle against the Black King that consists of the Seven Birds solving captcha questions while Alexa says “Sorry, I don’t know that” over and over again. Thanks, Barry.


	9. Cloud Shapes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dreams are a very personal experience, sharing them is the closest you can be to another person. Some are aware that they never dream alone. Some aren’t. 
> 
> Also Taako needs to get home to help Lup survive, but that’s less esoteric.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to post this chapter a few days ago, but the past week had been a personal hell of worry. It finally got marginally better.

Taako was pulled back to reality when his project partner shook him awake. The transition between Derse and real life was still jarring, despite going through this for years. She was concerned about him suddenly passing out. Just taking a nap, he told her. No big deal. Nothing to see here. He’ll be right back, just going for a quick bathroom break.

“Good luck with that,” was her only reply.

They were sitting in the middle of the row in a packed auditorium. This had, until now, prevented him from leaving his place. For one, he’d have to convince people to stand up and let him pass. More importantly though, it would 100% result in him losing his hard earned seat.

Hard earned by being already inside the building when the hurricane hit out of nowhere. A description that should not be applicable to hurricanes. A hurricane is supposed to build itself over a few days at least, give people some time to go for a nice run away from it. Or to prepare themselves. Instead, Taako’s college turned into an impromptu emergency shelter.

A shelter he was supposed to leave, according to his sister.

Did Lup have any idea what she was demanding of him? How ridiculous that notion was?

He would call her just to give her an earful, but there was no network down here. The WiFi had been cut off long ago, so he hadn’t been able to contact anyone. He’d probably have a better connection in the first floor, which was Taako’s goal for now. He needed to know what exactly was going on before he would risk walking through nature’s wrath.

For now he had to walk through humanity’s wrath. Nobody in his proximity was willing to stand up and let him pass. The tables were barely wide enough to hold a phone, but at least stable enough to walk on. He may or may not have walked on a few phones while hurrying out of this seating trap. Never the middle seat ever again, standing was better than this. Or sitting on the ground, as anyone who didn’t have a seat did. Another sea he had to part on his way to fresh air and a lot of rainy wind. The people were not happy about him walking all over them to get out of the room. Not that Taako paid any attention to that. 

Taako walked out of the auditorium into the corridor. No sound from outside reached this deep into the building, it was far from silent, though. The whole corridor and every room was full of people. Most of them were students, but visitors and passersby were also sitting around.  

Lup asked him to to go outside while every single person was allowed to chill here.

Fuck.

He walked up the stairs. The storm outside got louder with each step he took, until it was the only thing he could hear. The first floor was completely empty, with wind passing through some broken windows and the open doors. It looked bad outside, real bad. Taako did not want to go out there.

He decided to “check on his friends” first. He absolutely trusted Lup with his life, but it was hard to believe that she told the truth. That a magical game would teleport them away from this hell. He turned on data on his phone, and notifications flooded in just like the hurricane threatened with this floor.

Barry tried reaching him through literally every app he owned. No idea how he managed to do that with a Notes app, but leave that to him. There were some calls from Lup, too. She should have contacted him through Derse right away, but maybe it wasn’t possible due to the meteorite shower she was talking about.

All messages from Barry told him to go home, install Sburb and call him back. Over and over again. Pretty much the same thing Lup has asked him, begged him, to do. He looked through the IPRE server. There was a new channel called #Sburb that looked serious enough. He downloaded Lucretia’s journal to look through it. Taako was a quick reader, not the most efficient but quick. He missed a lot of important info but he got the main gist: Magnus and Lucretia were both close to getting killed by meteorites. The game got them away. The client player, who gets rescued, needs a server player who does the rescuing.

Lup told him she was in danger. Taako needs to be her server player. The current chain in #Sburb confirmed this: Magnus ← Lucretia ← Davenport ← Barry ← Lup ← Taako?

His sister had to join Sburb. He was sure that she’d be able to do it without him. Merle wasn’t on the list, yet. Magnus was also free to be her server player. But if things were true, if they were teleported to a different planet, then there’s no way that Taako would let his sister leave without him.

He had to get home. Now.

* * *

Merle was watering his plants while the sea level slowly creeped towards his house. The ocean was engulfing the whole island, and soon his house would meet the same fate. Yet he was busy watering his plants. It was the only thing he could reasonably do. The prophecies from Prospit told him so many things that had yet to happen. It had to be fine.

The sky-dip was approaching on Prospit, he had to finish gardening before he could leave. He had a nice routine going and a tsunami would not ruin that for him. In the morning he’d visit the nearby towns and cities to preach the word of Pan, the afternoon was spent tending to his plants, then he’d watch Prospit’s prophecies. After that he’d have the evening for himself and his friends. It was a very good routine.

He had visited a smaller town on the north side of the island today. Told them a changed version of what Prospit showed him. A very changed version. Honestly, it was more an inspiration than a retelling of the prophecy. He was able to leave early due to the size of the town. That way he had more time to pay extra attention to his greenhouse.

A greenhouse in Hawaii seemed unnecessary at first, but it had its advantages. He was able to grow all kinds of plants in one place, regardless of their need for water and sun. Which was good, the rain had been a lot stronger lately than it should be. Not dangerous to him but it would harm some of the more delicate plants. He was halfway done, currently taking meticulous care of a big pumpkin, telling it how big and beautiful it was, when he noticed the tsunami.

The tsunami that had already destroyed the little town he visited today. That brought a flood which was creeping closer to his own home. So of course he did the only reasonable thing and continued tending to his greenhouse.

The rain drummed heavy against the glass by the time he was done. Which was, as always, just on time to watch the sky-dip. Merle left his greenhouse and walked through his living room. It was very cramped with a huge couch taking up a third of the whole room. The walls were lined up with shelves full of a huge selection of media; printed, audio, video, etc. A door led to the kitchen. In a corner was his desk with an old computer.

He walked past it to take the stairs. The second floor had some empty guest rooms and one master bedroom. The whole corridor was full of plants that were able to live with little light. Merle resisted the urge to spend some time with them. He would do this after the sky-dip.

“Hello, my darlings,” Merle said as he opened the door to his bedroom. Nobody was in the room. “I've missed you so much.”

Vines covered every surface of his room, though. They grew all over the floor, up the wall and across the ceiling. They surrounded his bed and he caressed them while walking towards it and lying down.

“Mhm, keep me warm while I visit Prospit, will you?” he stroked a nearby vine tenderly while he drifted off into a peaceful sleep.

Merle woke up in an identical room, except that everything was in the colour of burnt umber. The weather outside was beautiful as always without any trace of a storm. He was wearing a golden pyjama that fit the outside decor of his tower. Every building was covered in a bright gold. Further away was the planet Prospit, equally bright and golden as its moon.

Technically, he was currently on Prospit's moon and not Prospit itself, but nobody was there to correct him.

Above him was Skaia. A bright blue planet with fluffy white clouds. The moon was slowly moving closer to it. It would soon dip into Skaia's hemisphere, but not yet. He still had some time, so he checked on the other two people.

The tower next to his was occupied by Magnus. He was sleeping in a very rustic bedroom which had a fitting burgundy colour. It was full of personality, yet none of it belonged to him. The pictures hanging in this room told a different man's story. Before Merle had any idea who the person sleeping in the bed was, he went through the bedroom for any clues about their life. There wasn't much he still remembered, most of it didn't seem important. The only notable discovery was, that the man possessed many documents under various names. 

If Merle had paid any attention to the pictures Magnus' shared about the house, then maybe he'd realise that the bedroom belonged to the person Magnus claimed to be Grandpa Steven. Unfortunately, Merle skipped the conversation about his friends' new living situation. He was stuck wondering why Magnus was sleeping in a strangers' bedroom. 

There were a few touches from Magnus, though. Hanging on the wall was a collage of all their friends. Taako and Lup were the only ones who were on the same picture, all others were cut out and glued on top of a forest background. Merle has considered doing something similar to hang in his living room but he wanted a real picture with all of them together.

In any way, Magnus looked fine so Merle moved on to the other tower. From the outside, the tower was the same size as the other two, yet had a much bigger room inside. Barry had a copy of his whole apartment in the colour of bluejeans. Merle wasn’t actually sure if that was any different from Barry’s real apartment. Merle moved through it to check on Barry. He seemed upset in his sleep but was otherwise fine. This was normal. Every once in a while, especially during stressful times, Magnus and Barry would sleep restlessly. Merle should check on Barry when he's awake to make sure everything was fine.

Merle left the tower to fly on top of it, looking towards Skaia at the white clouds. Which stopped being white the moment Prospit's moon dipped into the hemisphere. The clouds changed to visions, showing overlapping pictures of different scenes. It wasn't always clear what they showed. Sometimes he would see meteorites crashing on earth long before life began. Sometimes it showed him meteorites that crashed on cities destroying countless lives.

The clouds showed him a house next to a volcano. Standing between impossibly high trees.

They showed him the twins, younger than they were now. Sitting at an empty table in an empty kitchen.

They showed him himself in an old temple, looking up in shock. 

They showed him Magnus at a lonely funeral.

They showed him Davenport sailing a purple ship into the wide ocean.

They showed him Barry, alone in a dark room. Sitting in front of his computer with tired eyes.

They showed him civilisations he had met and some he hadn't. Sometimes they showed him people (?) whose skin (?) was completely white, he had met these creatures on Prospit. Their skin was more akin to a carapace. Sometimes they showed people with black carapaces living on a purple planet. Sometimes the clouds showed both in unity, working together. Sometimes he saw them fighting a war. 

Today he saw creatures with grey skin. 

But more importantly.

They showed him his greenhouse, in full bloom with Merle showing Lup around. Lup held some vegetables in her hands, and laughed when Merle had to run off all of the sudden. 

They showed him all of his friends sitting together in Merle's living room. Davenport was scolding Magnus, who didn't look sorry at all. Lucretia had a book lying in her lap while she tried hiding her laugh. Davenport rolled his eyes but smiled in defeat. Barry said something to Lup who excitedly gestured back. Taako flopped into the armchair and threw an apron at Merle, saying something that made Lup rush over for a high-five.

Everything would be fine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm pretty sure I spent half an hour editing the prophecies.
> 
> As an overview: Sburb players dream on the moon of either Prospit or Derse after they “wake up” for the first time.
> 
> Derse Dreamers: Taako (awake), Lup (awake), Lucretia, Davenport  
> Prospit Dreamers: Merle Highchurch (awake), Magnus Burnsides, Barry Bluejeans
> 
> It is absolutely canon that the Dreamer’s planet is determined by whether you have a last name or not.


	10. New Quest Added To The List

Magnus put on his Burnshades so Lucretia could stop pestering him about leaving his phone behind. The alchemization project had been a full semi-success. He had a nice new axe, Railsplitter, and glasses, Burnshades, that helped him stay in touch with his friends; fashionable glasses, phone and headset in one.

He also had a bunch of useless axes that were more dangerous to himself than to his enemies. The Boomeraxe and Battle Rang could be useful though, as long as he finds a better way to catch them when them fly back. He captchalogued them for later.

The captchalogue deck was also an improvement. It was able to hold more items than his pockets, like an inventory system in games. He captchalogued his phone, just in case, and some items that could come in handy like a rope, a first-aid kit, some food and Gatorade. He was still rummaging through his kitchen to find more snacks to take with him when he heard his front door getting kicked in.

Magnus wasn’t sure what to expect when he left the kitchen. Maybe five imps stacked on top of each other, trying to appear threatening. It would have been more imposing than a huge… ogre? Whose body was one thin “tube” bent in the shape of a paperclip. Did Davenport prototype a paperclip? It wears a Hug-Me shirt with fins sticking out of the armholes. On top was a teddy bear head whose eyes suddenly glowed blue and it said.

“Hi there!,” in a pleasant female voice.

_Did Davenport prototype Alexa!?_

“Alexa?” the eyes started glowing blue again, “Play I Really Like You.”

The bear’s mouth opened and a female voice said: “I Really Like You by Carly Rae Jepsen starting now.” The eyes stopped glowing but the mouth stayed open while the song played.

“Hell yes,” Magnus whispered. This was going to be so much fun.

The ogre was getting closer and Magnus equipped Railsplitter. The battle was on. Magnus swung his axe against it, but the ogre easily avoided with its paperclip body. A fin slapped him right in the face. Magnus swung again, aiming for the head this time. The ogre ducked out of his way. The clip propelled its fist, as if it were a metal spring, flinging Magnus across the room.

Carly Rae Jepsen sung happily “I really really really really really really like you!” while he got up from the pile of books that he landed in. Damn, that song was still a banger. But okay, wow, that one hurt. The ogre was moving towards him.

Steven²sprite suddenly phased through the wall next to Magnus, startling him more than the ogre did. Orange lasers shot out of his eyes at his coffee table which started floating. It then flew right at the ogre and pushed him further away from Magnus.

“Thanks!”

Another orange laser was directed at Magnus and he felt the pain from his cheek and his back ease away. He sprung back into action while Steven²sprite disappeared back through the wall. Magnus tried another attack with his axe, this time slashing horizontally so it would be harder to evade. With a clean cut, the ogre was defeated.

“Alexa, play Final Fantasy victory fanfare.”

The first few notes played and then the ogre exploded into Build Grist. This was enough to level him up and bring him half-way to level 14. Magnus checked the outside of his house for more enemies and watched an ogre climbing out of the ocean. It was kind of fitting with its fishhead. This fight went a lot easier than the last one, even without Steven²sprites help. Magnus had only a shallow cut on his left arm.

He made sure there were no monsters anywhere on his island before he sat down to update Lucretia about everything.

_Direct Message with Lucretia (online)_

 

Magnus: Be careful, there are ogres walking around and they punch real hard

Lucretia: Yes, I already had the pleasure of fighting one.

Lucretia: It looks like the game gets harder as we improve.

Magnus: Maybe it’s because davenport joined us?

Lucretia: He made it?

Magnus: The ogre had two new prototypes so probably

Lucretia: Two?

Magnus: Yeah, like a paperclip body and

Magnus: 🙂

Lucretia: And what?

Magnus: You’ll see 🙂

Lucretia: This is important information, we should know who we’re fighting. Otherwise we won’t be prepared.

Magnus: Oh shit

Lucretia: What?

Lucretia: Don’t change the subject.

Lucretia: But also what?

Magnus: The cut is gone

Magnus: I was cut in a fight but it’s completely healed now?

Lucretia: Oh, that’s very good to know. Did you do anything specific to get healed?

Magnus: Uh. I just walked around the house

Lucretia: Hm. Okay.

Magnus: There are no enemies left, so i’m gonna explore my world for a bit

Lucretia: Sure. It looks like I can’t move away from your house, though. I won’t be able to support you.

Magnus: That’s fine

First, Magnus would alchemize more items, though. The two ogres gave him more than enough grist to create new stuff. He still needed something to catch the Boomeraxe without risking his arm, otherwise he wouldn’t be able to use it. And he really wanted to use it. Luckily, his grandpa had collected a lot of weird items, including some pieces of chain mail. Magnus combined that with an oven mitt, and threw in a magnet for good measure. The result was an— uh. Magnus thought about it for a moment. A Fetcher's Mitt! Yes.

The Fetcher's Mitt would protect his arm well enough.

Land of Ducks and Longcase (clocks) had only one duck and a lot of clocks. His house was standing on the back of a badly carved duck, while longcase clocks were floating all over the water. There were some giant ones that one could consider islands, with normal sized longcases floating between them, forming a makeshift bridge.

Magnus said bye to Steven²sprite, who was swimming next to the duck. Steven looked more happy than ever, which was a win in Magnus’ book. He stepped on the first clock. It gave in slightly, but didn't sink. Magnus jumped over to the second, that promptly turned around and threw him off. Goddamnit. He climbed back up and stepped, not jumped, on the next one. They remained firmly in place as long as Magnus didn’t go too quickly. (Which he found out by going way too quickly.) By the time he made it to the first Big Clock, he wondered why he didn’t just swim there. Next time he’d need to captchalogue a towel and some change of clothes.  

The Big Clock was floating in the water the same as the individual bridge clocks did. But it was significantly bigger and— oh. There was no easy way to climb it. No big deal, Magnus came prepared with a rope and an axe that had “throwing” as its main purpose. He bound the rope to the Boomeraxe's handle and threw it up there. An easy climb for someone like Magnus. 

His Burnshades notified him of new messages in #general, none of them pinged him so he didn't bother to check. He had made it to the top and captchalogued the rope and axe. Imps were spread all around the place, but those weren’t a challenge.  

The longcase clock was facing the sky, so Magnus was able to see the intricate design carved into its front. Magnus wasn’t very knowledgeable in antiques, he was pretty sure half of the stuff his grandpa owned were fake, but he could tell that this would have been a very expensive clock just from the decoration alone. A wavy design covered the front side of the clock, in tight curves that were, according to Magnus’ experience, a bitch to carve. It was made out of some dark wood (dark wood was the expensive one, right?), the crates were painted in an even darker shade to give it more depth. The face of the clock was a beautiful white with golden accents.

He wondered if there was anything inside the clock, but the face was too big to open. He walked around the clock on the lookout for any secrets. Sburb was a video game, there had to be a secret entrance.

The equivalent to a differently drawn section in an old cartoon was apparently the sign he was looking for. Between the masterfully carved swirls was a spot that looked like it had been abandoned halfway through. Magnus got closer to look at it from a better angle and was surprised to see another shitty duck. The design was rough with many angles that didn't belong there. The curves looked entirely coincidental and its head was too big for the body. It was a stark contrast to the rest of the clock.

Magnus tried touching it, nothing happened except that he got splinters. He couldn't move it in any way and it didn't have any remarkable details that could be levers or buttons to open a secret door.

He stepped back and fell through a secret door that opened behind him.

There were two screams, one of them from Magnus, and he landed on something soft and scaly that complained very loudly.

“What were you doing there!! Did you harm our precious Quack?? Wait, you're not one of the terrible monsters, are you?”

Magnus rolled off from the creature and faced it. It looked like a blue… lizard? It was oddly stylised and therefore hard to tell. It stood on two legs and only reached up to his hips. “Only,” he thought, while talking about an one metre tall lizard.

“Uhm, no. I'm not a monster,” he finally replied “I'm Magnus and you are…?”

The lizard looked at Magnus like this is the dumbest question imaginable.

“I'm the most important iguana in our village! I look after our precious Quack to make sure the Underlings won't hurt it! Although… I'm not sure what I could do against those vicious imps…”

“Are you talking about the duck carving? Why is it so ugly anyway, did the imps destroy—”

“UGLY!?,” interjected the iguana indignantly, “How dare— You can't just! Thip! Thip! THIP!”

Magnus walked away from the raging iguana, its Thip's were echoing through the corridor. There was barely any light inside the clock, so Magnus retrieved his phone to use as a flashlight. He could see some berry bushes that various iguanas were harvesting. On the wooden walls between them were carvings. Most of them made little sense to him but after a while he recognised the jellyfish between badly attempted ducks. Did nobody on this planet know what a duck looked like?

After following the corridor for a while, he made it into a more open part of the clock. There were various iguanas here, some of them were smaller and appeared to be children. The adults talked in English with each other while the children only made Thip sounds. None of them seemed bothered by Magnus barging into their small village. He listened to some conversation while he passed them.

The most common topic were imps, the iguanas seemed terrified of them and Magnus immediately promised everyone that he’d kill every imp he’ll see. Some asked him for his phone or his Burnshades, they were very shiny and the kids reached for them whenever he turned his back to them. Magnus couldn’t give them away but he made a mental note to alchemize some of them and bring them to the village. The disappointed look of the baby lizards broke his heart. There was also an excited group of iguanas talking about The Chosen One. Hell yes, Magnus found the main quest. He walked up to them to introduce himself as The Chosen One, pleased to meet you.

And was startled by their “prove it”. Uh. Where are the dialogue options in this game?

“I… I slayed a dozen imps and two ogres on my journey!” this sounded a lot less impressive spoken out loud, the iguanas seemed to consider this, though. They thip’d with each other, getting more agitated with each “argument” passed between them. One was shoved in front of Magnus while the others hid behind the iguana.

“Did you talk to The Slumbering One? You can’t be The Chosen One if you haven’t talked to them!” the iguana said.

“Where can I find them?”

More aggressive thip’ing between the group. Magnus waited patiently for them to shove another iguana in front of him, at this point, they were getting very close to each other and Magnus should minimise his questions if he didn’t want to merge with one.

“We tell you if you give us the Light Maker.”

“I need it? I won’t find my way outside without light. Oh! If you come with me, I’ll give it to you outside—”

“No, no, no! Can’t leave the village.”

“Okay. Okay, sure. Give me like 20 minutes? Yeah, I’ll be back in 20 with a new phone that I can give you.” The iguanas were very apprehensive of the idea of him leaving the village without leaving his precious Light Maker behind. “I could make something even shinier! Totally, I’m sure somewhere between my grandpa’s stuff is a prism. That would make… _really_ pretty light.”

The iguanas ooh’d and thip’d excitedly, convinced by Magnus’ plan.

“You’ll come back with something even shinier and we’ll tell you where!” The iguanas nodded.

“Sure! Should have expected the first quest to be a fetch quest, no big deal. I’ll be back.”

On his way out, he decided to update Lucretia. He was sure she’d appreciate the information. Maybe she had some idea what he could ask those iguanas when he came back to the village. He had to make sure to bring gifts for all the villagers and maybe some food? What did they eat? Insects, probably. Oh god, he hoped it wasn’t spiders.

He was in the middle of a long message when his Burnshades notified him of a ping in #sburb. Lucretia outlined everything she and Magnus experienced regarding alchemization and ogres, so it was nothing new to him. He sent her a quick thumbs up and a small correction, and decided to call her instead of writing everything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it's Fletcher's Mitt, but I saw no in-fiction reason to name it that way. 
> 
> Me, kicking my own depression: Stop! Telling! Me! This! Chapter! Is! Bad!!


	11. Load Game

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Content warning for this chapter!** The chapter notes at the end have more information.
> 
> The only thing I know about ships is from the History Of Japan video with “Knock knock. It's the United States. With huge boats. With guns. Gunboats.”

Davenport looked down at his hands, trying to figure out how to progress now that they are badly hurt. He expected the bleeding to stop by now, he did not expect the cuts to be mostly healed.

How…? A closer look at his right hand revealed thin lines on his thumb and index finger. Those lines were supposed to be cuts, instead it looked like scars were forming. The left hand had a big cut right through the palm. It was still red and tender, looking closer he could actually watch his skin stitching itself together.

Carefully, he flexed his right hand to make sure it wasn’t just an illusion or his mind playing games on him. He could move it without any pain, and after a few more minutes he was able to do the same with his left hand. At this point, the scars were barely there.

His shoulders slumped as he let out a huge sigh of relief. The damage was simply _gone_ and he could use his hands again, as if he hadn’t stuck them into broken glass just five minutes ago. Which, by the way, he should probably clean up. But first, time to catch up with his friends. For real this time, now that typing was a possibility.

_#general (IPRE), users online: Barry, Davenport, Lucretia, Lup, Magnus (idle), Taako (idle)_

 

Davenport: I made it to the Medium. :-) It was close, but this seems to be the norm. More importantly, Sburb appears to have a healing feature. I don't know what triggers it, I was waiting for the bleeding to stop and the wounds healed instead.

Lup: how is that more importantly than surviving???

Lucretia: That's wonderful!

Lucretia: Both your survival and the healing. Stronger monsters appeared, so we might need that.

Lucretia: Lup!

Lup: oh yeah, i'm home

Davenport: I'm relieved to hear you made it home. Things are looking up. :-)

Lucretia: That's great news!

Lup: and taako is on his way

Lup: right? @Taako

Lup: @Taako

Lup: @Taako

Lup: oh wow, is he actually on his way?? nice

Lup: and what’s mags up to?

Lup: just asking to stay in the

Lup: loop

Lup: with everyone

Lup: aw shit mags isn’t here to boo me

Lucretia: He’s exploring his planet.

Davenport: That sounds like a great idea! I was thinking about doing the same.

Lup: have fun

Davenport was about to turn off his laptop when he received a DM from Lucretia. She asked him to place a Punch Designix in her house. He had no idea what this meant, but with her instructions he was able to find and place it. Time to focus on his own plans. 

The view from his window didn’t look promising. His planet was almost empty. There were two ships out in the open ocean and nothing else. If he focused really closely, he could see vague shapes further away, but he couldn't tell if those weren't just oddly shaped clouds. For now, he wanted to find a way to get to those ships. They were too far out to swim to, even though the ocean looked very calm. 

The bedroom did, unsurprisingly, not give him any solutions so he moved to the living room. The purple ship was still there. From reading Lucretia’s documentation he knew, Magnus’ tree and Lucretia’s bookshelf disappeared after they entered the Medium. He expected his ship to do the same. Instead it was floating slightly above the Alchemiter.

This could work.

He asked Barry to help him transport the ship outside. It took Barry a few minutes to get back at him. Instead of moving the ship out of the house, Barry removed a wall from his apartment. Davenport could see why.

The whole apartment building was gone, except for the steel beams that held his apartment up. Below him was the ocean. He wasn't too far up, jumping should be fine. But he couldn't tell if there were any hidden dangers. There was also the risk that the game had different rules for fall damage than reality. They still needed to find out how much this was a game and how much it was just like the real world, and here, out in the middle of an ocean, is not when Davenport was keen to test it.

The purple shit got picked up by an invisible force, and then floated back down. Barry must have deemed it as good enough and held the ship out of the apartment, over the ocean. It was let go and slowly floated down, almost ignoring gravity. Davenport jumped on deck without hesitation. The ship didn't mind his weight and continued its path. Davenport signed a “Thanks” to where he expected Barry to look.  

The ship didn't quite touch the water. The calm waves didn’t move it at all. Actually, nothing moved the ship. Once it was down there, it simply stayed at its place. The wind was completely still. Davenport had the suspicion that the sails were more decorative than functional and wouldn't work either way.

Maybe he could use the mast as an oar? He was about to rip it out of its holding when he noticed oars on the ship's deck. They shouldn't be there, Davenport built the ship and would have noticed them. Could they have appeared when he entered the Medium?

Oh well, they were there now, and his only alternative would be climbing up those beams to look through his apartment for anything that worked better. Which he'd preferred not to do. (He probably had to do it later, though.) He kicked away some pieces of glass that were still lying around and grabbed an oar.  

He started rowing towards the nearest ship on his planet. The ships here looked like they were from different parts of the world, from different times. The direction he was rowing to had ancient Chinese styled ships. The closest one was definitely an old model, although it looked perfectly intact. Behind them, the vague shapes he could see from his house slowly manifested into ships. They gained more details the closer he got until he was able to see them just as clearly as he saw any other ship.

Now that he had to think about multiple ships, he decided to name his own ship. Referring to it as the purple ship would get annoying, especially if there were any other purple ships out there. He was still going through possible names - Wavehumper? Wavesmasher? - when he reached his destination. He used the oar to hit the other ship, making sure that it was a solid object and not a victim of the "mirages" part of his planet's name. Hopefully, it would stay that way. 

He checked his phone for any new messages before he’d get up there, but there were no notifications. Some ropes were hanging down from the ship and he grabbed one to climb up.

There was nothing noteworthy on the deck. Some imps where scattered here and there but those are easy to deal with. In fact, they seemed to be hiding, so they definitely weren't dangerous as long as they wouldn't catch him off guard. He went further to explore the deck while keeping an eye on them.

Which is why he didn't see the ogres until it was too late. They were on the mast, hidden behind the sails, and when they jumped down on either side of him there was no route for him to escape.

The fight was over in a moment.

It took days for the others to safely get to the Land of Ships and Mirages, to find out what had happened to him. By then his life had been lost.

A doomed timeline.

A timeline where it would be impossible for the Sburb players to progress. A timeline where a wrong decision has been made, where someone was on the wrong side of a coin, where someone didn't receive the help they needed. A timeline that had only one function: to prevent its own existence.

This was not supposed to happen. Davenport was not supposed to die on this ship.

It took the remaining survivors, and Davenport wasn't the only one missing, some time to figure out what they had to do. To figure out how to prevent their own existence. Davenport couldn't go on this ship without suitable weapons or some kind of support. His level was too low to fight on his own, somebody had to protect him. Davenport couldn't die, not alone. 

When they found out how to prevent doom, the timeline ceased to exist.

Davenport was back on his purple ship. He used the oar to hit the other ship. He checked his phone, there were no new notifications. He took the ropes to climb up. 

The sight on the deck was a surprise. A huge amount of Build Grist was lying around, and in the middle of it stood Magnus. He looked tired. He was shaking but not hurt. Despite this he smiled widely.

“Capt'n'port!”

Surprised, Davenport started signing a question. Magnus seemed to realise in shock that he couldn’t read sign language, at least that’s how Davenport interpreted that face expression any time he encountered it. He hold up his hand to sign Magnus to wait while he got his phone.

“Ah sorry, I only learned like… How to ask for the bathroom. And the alphabet! If you spell it really slowly, I could—”

Davenport was done typing and text to speech read out loud: “What are you doing here? How did you get here? Are our planets connected to each other?”

“No! I mean yes, connected but—” There was so much longing in his eyes, but he straightened himself and said, “I'm not Magnus. I'm just… a construct of this game. An— uh, mirage!”

Davenport stepped closer and Magnus stepped back.

He typed into his phone, “A mirage on my own planet that doesn’t know sign language?”

“I’m a very realistic mirage! I— I'm here to tell you that… You're progressing in the wrong direction! You're not supposed to be here, yet!”

“But I've got my floating ship. Why should I not be here? It's my planet.”

“It's because…”

A shadow manifested on the other side of the ship. It grew slowly in size but Magnus had already thrown a lance at it before it could take its final form. The maybe-ogre died within a single hit. Magnus recalled his lance as if this weren't a big deal.

“It's because you need to make a plan. Yes! You're our leader— THE leader,” Magnus corrected himself, “you need make plans before you go out on your own.”

“I didn't know we had a leader.”

“If you don't have one, then you definitely should step up and take the job!”

Davenport wasn't exactly convinced of that. At the same time, he couldn't see any harm in preparing himself before he tried to progress any further. Half of their team weren't even in the Medium, yet. There was no need to rush. 

“I guess that's not a bad idea? Okay, I'll go back and see what I can do before I go travelling on my own.”

“Great idea!”

Davenport turned around to leave.

“Wait!”

He started typing “I thought”, but Magnus interrupted him.  

“Can I get a hug?” Magnus didn't attempt to hide how desperately he wanted Davenport to say yes. 

“What?”

“That's like… my payment for helping you out?”

“You're supposed to state your payment upfront.”

“Oh, hm,” his smile was gone by now and his shoulders slumped. “I guess so. Still. Please?”

Did everyone else have such weird experiences on their planet? He had to admit that rejecting Magnus was hard, even if this was only a mirage and not the real one.

Davenport sighed and then nodded, Magnus was on him at an inhuman speed. He was pulled into a bone crushing hug. It was desperate, even for someone as affectionate as Magnus. 

Time felt… weird. He couldn't explain it, but everything appeared to speed up when Magnus let go. Not in the romantic sense, it literally felt as if time sped up. The clouds moved faster for just a moment, and despite how calm the ocean was, he could feel the ship shift and then stop just as suddenly as it started moving. Magnus wasn't paying any attention to it.  

“Time to go,” he said. 

“Sure. Thank you? Bye.”

“Yep.”

Davenport was climbing down the rope when Magnus spoke up again. “You should call the ship Starblaster!”

“Okay. I mean, yes, that's a good name. The ship won't blast any stars, though.”

“Pscht, details.”

Davenport landed safely on his ship, the Starblaster. He decided to check his phone again before he'd head back. There were new messages in the channel #sburb from 20 minutes ago. Impossible. He had been on the ship with the imaginary Magnus for five minutes at most. He set up text to speech and started rowing. No use in contemplating lost time.

Davenport turned around to wave at Magnus before he lost sight of him.

* * *

 

_#sburb (IPRE), users online: Barry, Davenport, Lucretia (idle), Lup, Magnus (idle), Taako_

 

_[ Lucretia sent sburb_v1_5.txt]_

Lucretia: Davenport and Barry are busy, so I’ll do the summary. :) Please never have me do that ever again. Thank you for forwarding me your observations, Barry.

Lucretia: @everyone  
The current Client ← Server chain is following:  
Magnus ← Lucretia ← Davenport ← Barry ← Lup  
Taako is on his way home. Nobody has been able to contact Merle. If any of you have an idea how to reach him, please say so.

We have made new observations on the game mechanics! You can prototype your Kernel two times, only prototype it ONCE before entering the Medium, though. All prototyping that is applied before you enter the Medium will also be applied to our enemies. You want to prototype something useless first to make the enemies weaker, enter the Medium and then prototype something smart to get a guide! I’m sure a guide is useful, I haven’t got much experience with it.

Lucretia: Next are enemies & health. A new type of enemy has been spotted. Ogres started appearing when Davenport entered the Medium. It’s uncertain if this was related to his two times prototyped sprite or to him being the third player to enter. In any way, be careful around them. They’re A LOT more dangerous than imps. With this being said, if you’re wounded then make sure to take a break. Relaxing seems to heal wounds relatively quickly. It’s our only way to recover until we figure out other methods.

Apparently Sprites can heal too. Thank you, Magnus. _(edited)_

Lucretia: Last is alchemization! After entering the Medium, your server player can place a Punch Designix which you can use to combine any number of items. A detailed description is in sburb_v1_5.txt. We’re still experimenting with it, but we found out that alchemization costs Build Grist that you get from defeating enemies. So please make sure to alchemize the following items before you run out of it:  
\- Weapons! You need a suitable weapon, don't be cheap about this.  
\- A way to (voice) chat handsfree. So you can stay in contact even during battle.

If you need more Captchalogue Cards for alchemization, the code is 11111111.

* * *

 

Davenport has reached his home. There were stairs now, probably built by Barry. He was still thinking about what Lucretia had written. How important a weapon is because of how strong ogres are. He realised that he only had the sledgehammer in his strife deck, which isn't a weapon he could use very well.

He was lucky that he hadn't met an ogre, yet. Or he could have gotten hurt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning: Character death in an alternate timeline. There is no actual description of the death, but more of the aftermath. 
> 
> (He wasn't supposed to be the first one to die, but Sburb, uh, finds a way.)


	12. Riddle Me Piss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Barry: Can I enter the Medium, please?  
> Sburb: New phone, who dis?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning: Background character death. Like, they're not even characters tbh. It's just "general death warning."

Barry didn’t understand what it meant. This wasn’t an atypical situation for him to be in, each day he worked on multiple problems that he didn’t quite understand. His whole job was solving problems nobody could grasp.

Those problems usually didn’t involve his own death.

“So to summarise,” he opened a notebook to write everything down, “the Cruxtruder implies nothing will happen to me for an hour. Until this point, everyone who entered the Medium did it in the last possible second. This means that I won't be able to enter for nearly an hour.”

Lup made a noncommittal sound, but Barry knew she was paying attention.

“There is no way in hell you'll be safe for that long,” he said.  

“Honestly, I'd be surprised if this building survives another 20 minutes.”

“Right. You can't wait for me to enter, you and Taako have to setup a connection as soon as possible.”

“Is that an issue, though?”

Barry took a moment to think about it. The game didn't give them any kind of instructions, but making a chain seemed like the most obvious way to go. It could have worked out if they’d skip Barry during the connection setup— no. Davenport had to get out and Lup hadn’t been home yet, Barry had to be his server player. Either way, they needed to deal with what they had available to them. No going back in time.

He noticed some of his spare computer parts floating around. Lup must have gotten bored waiting for his answer.

“I honestly don't know. We have to do it, though. Otherwise you'll die.”

“I'll die either way if Taako doesn't get home any time soon!”

“How did you reach him anyway? I tried every way I could and we still need to get in touch with Merle.” Lup didn't reply right away, so Barry continued, “And don't tell me it's a twin thing. You're in two different cities, I'm pretty sure that doesn't work.”

She sighed.

“Is it really important right now? It won't work with Merle—”

“We have to try! We can't just let him die.”

Silence, and then, “Heh, I shook my head and forgot this wouldn't work with voice chat.” Which made Barry smile.

“It's not like I'm trying to keep this secret or anything. The full explanation just takes too long. Shit, it could take the hour you have left.”

“Give me a TL;DR and I promise I won't ask further questions.”

It took Lup a moment to reply. Maybe she was considering whether she should say something, maybe she was thinking about the best way to summarise it.

“Taako and I can talk to each other while we sleep. It's like we're sharing a dream. I took a nap, forced him to take one too and then explained everything in the dream.”

“Damn. Okay. I promised no more questions. But damn. Right, this probably won’t work for Merle. Let's get back to the issue at hand,” Barry looked down at the few notes he had taken. “To enter the Medium each one of us gets a task they have to complete. You will know what you have to do once you're faced with it.”

“Mmhm.”

“I was given a sheet of paper with a question on it. Everything within me tells me, I have to answer the question.” Lup made another sound of agreement.

Barry walked over to the Alchemiter to make sure, to make absolutely sure that he hadn't misread it. That nothing deep within him told him to rip the paper apart. To set it on fire as Lup had previously suggested.

There was a short question. He wanted to answer it. He knew this was something he had to do. He could feel a pull that told him to grab a pen and write an answer. In fact, he had written multiple possible answers to that question. One ended up being rather a long wielded explanation why he wasn't able to answer the question. All attempts at replying simply vanished and he was left with a single sentence.

“How the fuck am I supposed to find the last digit of Pi within an hour!?”

* * *

 

Taako hated everything about his situation. It was completely terrible and he'd love to spend hours complaining about it. His dorm wasn't far away from the college building. Five minutes at average, give or take.

It took a little bit longer than that to walk through a hurricane. Fuck, he spent nearly five minutes alone clinging to a tree. He only moved away because the water level was raising and he wanted to avoid going through flooded sections as much as possible. Which would have been “avoid all of it” if his sister didn’t have other plans. What kind of plan was it anyway? Play some game, get teleported on another planet that is totally rad and safe and doesn’t have meteorites falling down on you? Sounds fake.

Taako had to take two steps back when the wind became too strong. Fuck. He hurried to a dorm building, it wasn’t his dorm but it was some protection from nature. Not as great as the college’s auditorium was.

Why was he doing this?

Because Lup asked him to do it. She basically begged, but Taako did not want to associate that word with his sister. Lup didn’t beg.

Except for when she did.

He walked along the wall, it was easier to walk close to a building. Lucretia and Magnus had both been in danger, but escaped to a magic land far far away. Lup was in danger and wanted to escape there, too. There’s no way either twin would leave the other behind so Taako had to come with her. (Except for when she didn’t follow Taako to college. She was incredibly smart, she could have easily gotten a scholarship so why didn’t she? But it didn’t matter, college was only temporary and they’d move in together as soon as they could afford to. It hadn’t been the end of the world. But this right now apparently was.)

They always had each other.

Taako was crossing over a bridge, it used to be a footbridge to make crossing the street below possible. It has now become a normal bridge to cross a river. Cars were being swept away below and Taako didn’t dare to look any closer, didn’t dare to see if anyone was still in the cars.

He had to crawl over the bridge, the wind raged through the open area, making it impossible to stand up. He was very close to his dorm, though. Looking back, it was pretty depressing how long this took, the college building he came from was still in his view.

Then he saw a glaring light in the sky and the building was gone.

It took a moment to process this. A moment where his grip on the railing became numbing. Where an incredible cold set in his chest, stronger than the wind and water that had been assaulting him. It was hard to look away from the remains of building.

The glaring light had been a meteorite, his brain told him. A meteorite has crashed into the building, it then concluded. The remains of the building, that weren’t completely evaporated on impact, were now crashing down into the basement, it mused further. The people Taako had shared a table with were currently getting buried alive. It took him a moment to catch up with his own thoughts.

It could have been him, still in that building. Trying to get out while nobody would know what had happened to him. While Lup wouldn’t have anyone to get her away from her own situation. Taako would have died if he stayed here any longer.

Taako forced himself to turn away from it. To ignore the sounds of stone crumbling that was carried to him by the wind. To not look down at the cars with people trapped inside. He sat there for a moment, just another second. And his mind finally cleared. The sounds went away, the cars beneath him went back to a blank state that he could disregard. Taako was good at ignoring problems, at pretending they weren’t there. He could finally use this to his advantage.

With the panic subdued, he was able to ease the grip from the railings, his hands were nearly frozen in place by how little blood there was and how cold the wind has been. He continued to walk carefully over the bridge. From there on, it was easy to get to his dorm building. The calm within the building was a blessing. He could still hear the wind outside, but he was in safety now and the hurricane could suck his dick.

Taako pulled his phone out, it was pretty damp but it still worked. He sent his sister a quick message while walking upstairs. The tragedies that he just witnessed completely erased from his thoughts.

* * *

 

“So to summarise,” Barry started again, staring at his notebook that was now full of attempted and failed guesses to his riddle, “the game doesn’t accept any of my answers.”

“Maybe drawing a circle?” this was a futile guess and both of them knew it. Lup had contributed some impressive suggestions to what the solution could be. This was one of the worse ones.

“I have drawn so many damn circles.”

It was mainly one of the worse ones because they have both suggested it five times each in the last ten minutes. It had become harder to think of anything new with each desperate guess. More silence where both of them tried to figure this out, there had to be a solution to this.

“Oh shit!” exclaimed Lup.

“Hm?”

“Taako made it!” the relief was apparent in her voice. She had been worried whether Taako would bother following her instructions, whether he would actually make it. Whether he would make it in time.

“That’s great!”

Barry was genuinely relieved to hear that. He wasn’t getting any closer to solve his puzzle but it might become easier once they stopped worrying about Lup’s survival. Farspeech played a notification sound as Lup added Taako to the call.

“Sup,” said Taako completely out of breath.

“Get your ass on the PC and install it! My whole neighbourhood is ash.”

“Getting there. What are you two up to? I have like a shitton of notifications and am not reading any of that,” Taako lied, he had already read through all of the #sburb channel except for Lucretia’s newest messages. They seemed to be more relevant once you’re in the game and not while you still try to get in there.

“The game has given me a riddle to solve that is completely impossible to solve,” Barry didn’t bother to elaborate further, he knew the twins very well and Lup was the better one when talking about math. Taako wouldn’t be able to bring in any ideas that Lup didn’t already have.

“Cool.”

“Not cool! Have you installed Sburb?”

Taako groaned in response, “I’m getting there as quickly as this piece of shit laptop can. It takes a while. You know that.”

Lup held back a snarky reply. She knew that. Knowing it didn’t ease her nerves though. She could die any moment now, they had to set up a connection as fast as they could. They needed to change the subject or she’d start panicking again.

“So about the unsolvable riddle,” she started.

“It’s not a riddle of there’s no solution,” Taako intersected.

“It’s more of a test question,” Barry continued. Talking to the twins was a hard balance act but he always enjoyed it. “But not really, because it doesn’t take a reasonable explanation as a reply.”

“So more of a rhetorical question,” said Taako.

“No, you already know the answer to a rhetorical question! There is no answer to this,” Lup shot back.

“It’s nothing,” Barry realised while looking at the paper.

“Great!”, Taako sounded a lot more excited than he had any right to. “Just make something out of it. Easy.”

“There’s nothing easy about that!”, Barry replied. But he was already taking out his pen to try something new.

“It’s a good idea, though. We already tried all possible replies,” said Lup, “Maybe we just have to change the question?”

Barry tried exactly that. He struck out the old question and wrote a new one underneath it. Then took a second pen to reply to it. Nothing.

“Didn’t work,” he said.

“This is like a video game, right?”, Taako said like he wasn’t exactly sure where he was going with that thought. He probably wasn’t, but the other two could work with it.

“Yeah, I looked at the code to make sure it’s fine,” said Barry.

Lup slammed a hand on her desk, “You could change the code!”

“You could hack it,” Taako was equally excited.

“To turn it into a real question,” Barry finished the thought.

“We got it!” the twins said at the same time.

They all cheered. Despite Lup being still tired from running home for an hour, through the destruction of her city. Despite Taako still being cold and wet, after barely escaping death while still dealing with a hurricane. Despite Barry facing an impossible task, that may or may not have a solution. They celebrated their progress together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I absolutely adore interactions between Barry, Lup and Taako. I always imagine them to be on the perfect wavelength, with each of them being able to complete the others’ thoughts when they’re stuck. This interaction wasn’t planned at all (Barry and Lup were supposed to figure it out on their own) but I’m very glad it happened.


	13. Nani the Fuck

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lup: Taako, get me into the Medium.  
> Taako: Lol.

Lup was ecstatic about their progress. Sure, Barry only had about 35 minutes left to hack the game and change his task, but it was _Barry_. He'll be fine. Lup fully believed in his competence. For now, she had to sort out her own shit. Barry had left the voice chat to focus, so it was just her and Taako. Who was currently driving her up a wall.

“Just place the goddamn thing!” she shouted at her brother.

“It's not easy—”

“Put it down!”

“My trackpad is wet, it doesn't react.”

“DRY IT!”, she was getting hysterical at this point.

“I'm looking for my controller.”

“You haven't replaced your mouse, yet!?”

“No, god, chill.”

“I am literally dying right now,” she said at the same time as Taako shouted “Found it!”

“I swear if this doesn't have controller support,” said Lup.

“No, no, it works— SHIT!”

Lup heard a crash behind her. She turned around to see the Cruxtruder standing half on her bed half and on the floor. The bed was giving in under the weight and broke.

“The controls are terrible, how do I get to the menu?”, Taako thought out loud.

Which Lup couldn't answer, of course. She had hoped that she could pawn off most of her work to Taako, now she would consider herself lucky if Taako manages to place all required devices.

Lup looked around her room for anything heavy that she could smash against the lid of the Cruxtruder. There wasn't a lot she could use, though. The only object that came to her mind would be a chair of some sort, but she used an old armchair to sit in front of the PC and there was no way she'd be able to lift it. Maybe she could jump on it?

Lup removed the headset so she could hear Taako through the speakers and walked over to the Cruxtruder. It wasn't hard to climb on the pipe, she had to be careful about jumping, though. The Cruxtruder stood on an angle due to the height difference between the floor and the (broken) bed. She stomped down on to test the water, and it didn't move. Carefully jumped once and again no movement.

“Stop holding back and jump for real,” teased Taako.

“There's a ceiling, y’know??”

Her head was only a few inches away from touching the ceiling. She tried using her arms to push herself down against the lid on the pipe, but it didn't react. Sighing she gave in to her fate. Her legs were still burning from running all the way, so what was some additional headache?

Lup crouched down, then jumped up while keeping her head low. It still hit the ceiling. She pressed her feet down with as much power as she could. The lid finally gave in and opened, throwing her off balance and onto the floor.

Taako didn't attempt to laugh silently.

“Fuck you.”

At least the Cruxtruder was activated and the LED showed that she had a few minutes left. Which was good, because Taako still struggled with getting into the menu to deploy the remaining devices. The Cruxtruder’s pipe spit out a circular, red Kernelsprite and the cylindrical, also red cruxite dowel. The dowel was useless for now, she needed the Totem Lathe to proceed.

For now she had to deal with the Kernelsprite. She had to pick an object to prototype it with. The easiest would be some kind of useless item like a bottle— Shit, she could prototype it with a can of Sprite to get a Spritesprite. She didn’t have any Sprite lying around, though. So much potential wasted.

Her second idea was something ridiculous like a sex toy but Taako might actually kill her for that. And if one of their friends would consider using the enemies-prototyped-with-a-sex-toy (looking at you, Merle) then she’d let Taako do that.

“Holy shit! I figured out the menu and let me tell you, this is bullshit!”

A Totem Lathe started floating inside her room. Taako had clearly trouble steering it to where he wanted to place it. It moved back and forth through the room and Lup had to jump out of the way multiple times. Her room was tiny, there wasn’t much room for it to move around. Taako finally dropped it in front of her closet. Unfortunately, the Totem Lathe’s base was a lot thinner than the Cruxtruder’s, so it immediately lost balance and crashed to the ground.

“Uhh, can you still use that?”

Lup took a close look at the Totem Lathe. There had to be a card slit somewhere to insert the pre-punched card. It would be fine if she could find it. This side of the Totem Lathe lacked any kind of control interface though, the card slit had to be on the other side.

“Nope, I need the other side.”

“Okay, wait, how about—,” the Totem Lathe started floating again, “How do I turn it arou— Ah,” the Totem Lathe rotated until it was upright. “Can you just use it while I hold it?”

“I need the pre-punched card from step… 4? Probably?”, said Lup.

“I already did step 4, it’s this thing.”

“Fuck, wait,” Lup looked over to her second monitor where the #sburb instructions were still open. “It’s step 6. Why the fuck is it step 6, it should happen after the Totem Lathe!”

The Totem Lathe crashed to the floor again and Lup was sure that her room would be destroyed before the meteorite got any chance to get here. Taako picked it back up and it slowly rotated upright again.

“I dropped the card,” said Taako.

“Where?”

“... In your room? Maybe?”

Lup somehow managed not to scream. Her room was extremely messy and to make matters worse, the card itself was red just as Lup’s most preferred colour. Lup heard the Totem Lathe fall down a few more times while she looked for the card, her brother apparently tried to get it to stand by itself. With the amount of cursing involved, this seemed to be harder than expected.

She finally found the card underneath her desk.

“Stop dropping it,” the Totem Lathe held still as Lup walked towards it. Inserting the card wasn’t a problem. She picked up the cruxite dowel and put it inside the Totem Lathe. Lup pressed the only available button and the mechanical arm attempted to move but was stopped by some invisible force. Damnit.

“It doesn’t work,” she said.

“I can’t get it to stand upright.”

“Wait, maybe it doesn’t matter. I already started the process, the arm only has to move.”

Lup stepped away from it and Taako let if fall down again. The crash to the ground seemed to confuse the arm for a moment, but it then carved the Cruxite dowel without further complaint. Finally! Lup glanced at the clock on the Cruxtruder, 02:27 left. Still doable.

She extracted the carved Cruxite dowel from the Totem Lathe, which immediately started floating again and was flung through the wall leading out of her room. Leaving behind a hole in the wall and a very abused floor.

“What the fuck, Taako!?”

“I need space for the Alchemiter,” the Cruxtruder and her bed received the same Kool-Aid Man treatment.

“I’m pretty sure I still need those!”

“You need the Alchemiter more.”

The Alchemiter was placed, true enough it took up most of her room leaving her only little space to walk around it. She was about to place the Cruxite dowel on it when the Kernelsprite got in her way, making annoying noises. Right, she needed to prototype it with something.

There wasn’t much left of her room. The closet doors were blocked by the Alchemiter and most of her stuff was lying on the floor underneath said Alchemiter. The only things left were lying on her desk. She had no idea how much time was left to make a decision.

The desk was very chaotic, with jewellery, letters and (comic) books. Sure, she could prototype something boring like her headphones or some advertisements she got in her mail. But that would be boring. Also adding ads to a game was generally a bad idea if you didn’t profit of it.

“Hey, Taako, help me with a decision. What should I prototype my Sprite with?”

Their way of helping each other with decisions was that Lup would list all positive aspects and possible outcome while Taako would take a pessimistic outlook. It played off both of their strengths while grounding each other. Lup tended to do reckless things because they seemed fun. Taako often stayed too passive, avoiding all risks. It was easier to find a middle ground together.

(Lately, Barry has been joining them to give a rational perspective.)

“Okay, just pick a paper or whatever. Make it easy for us,” said Taako.

“Noooo. I make the offers, you evaluate.” Taako groaned while Lup looked over her desk, comics were the first thing she saw.

“Deadpool would be a fun guide—,” she started but Taako interrupted her instantly.

“You're not making our enemies Deadpool!”

Ugh, okay fair. She put all other superhero comics aside, too. Lup was all for challenging games, but this one seemed war too high stakes to risk it. Lucretia said that enemies were getting stronger, and they didn't know if deaths were final. Next were some music CDs, but they already had Alexa, no reason to waste a prototype slot on more music. 

"Harry Potter?" she asked. 

"Lup."

She moved over to her mangas without another word. One Punch Man was on top and she sadly disregarded it. Having Saitama as a guide would be hysterical.

“Terror in Resonance?,” she said and then added the Japanese name because her brother was a goddamn weeb. (She ignored that she knew the Japanese name in the first place.) “Zankyou no Terror?”

“You mean the manga about literal terrorists? What the fuck?”

“Yeah but, spoiler alert, they die!”

“Fuck no. Don't you have anything less volatile?”

“Fullmetal Alchemist.”

“I'm not fighting Ed! Or Al for that matter. Could you kill either of the brothers, Lup? Could you?”, he took this awfully personal.

“Ugh, okay. You make an offer.”

“Use a goddamn sheet of pape—”

“No!”, she cut him off.

“Do you have anything My Little Pony related?”

“Don't bring up our shameful past.”

“MLP was good!”

“I'm running out of time. And no, I've got nothing. And could you really punch Rarity? Like come on.”

“Sure, why not? But that's moot either way.”

Taako took more time to think about this, while Lup continued to look through her desk. She discarded a lot of media due to simple reasons like “too overpowered”, “I don't want THAT as a guide” and “Could I really punch an Eevee?” there weren't many options left. She should have gotten her horse mask out of the closet before Taako placed the Alchemiter. That would have been hilarious.

“Uh, how about… What's its name? Natsume's Book of Friends?”, Lup held the DVD up that her brother got her for their birthday. Which they always used to get a nice present for themselves. Case in point: Lup's laptop didn't _have_ a CD drive, the gift was useless to her.

“Natsume Yuujinchou.”

“Bless you,” she said with a grin while Taako groaned. That joke was getting old which absolutely did not stop her.

“You know what? Sure, why not. Main character is weak as fuck—”

“He never fights! He only makes friends with ghosts, that's perfect,” said Lup.

“You want to be friends with those ogres?”

“Sure why—”

“SHREK!”, exclaimed Taako.

“Do you have any Shrek merch? I don't have shit.”

Lup didn't want waste any more time, especially because she had no idea how much was left. She threw the DVD at the Kernelsprite and it changed its appearance to a circle with Takashi Natsume's face in it.  

“I could print a picture of Shrek?”, said Taako after some hesitation.

“Fuck yes.”

Unbeknown to Lup, she placed the carved cruxite dowel with 10 seconds left on the Alchemiter. It took the Alchemiter exactly 5.5 seconds to process the cruxite dowel and red rain (hopefully not blood) started falling on the Alchemiter. Lup considered getting her umbrella out of her strife deck for a split second. Instead she stepped on the Alchemiter.

And in the last second.

She dabbed.

Light was everywhere. The rain was getting weaker, but it already soaked through her top. She felt like it should be warm with how bright her surrounding was, but it felt like nothing. Just a bright glow. And suddenly everything went back to how it was.

From her position, she could still see flames burning outside. She heard a loud explosion. That should be gone now. Why was she still on earth? It should have brought her to a different planet!

Another explosion, this time it sounded like it came from underneath her apartment. She had failed. The meteorite has crashed into her apartment and she would die.

“Koko?”, she asked with a small voice.

“Holy shit, your land looks bad.”

What?

Another explosion, this time further away. It had been some time since her apartment should have crashed to the ground. But nothing happened.

She looked up just in time to see the circular Sprite split up into three components. A white disc and a black disc flew out of the window. The white flew up into the sky and the black flew down. The remaining part of the sprite changed shape into a red ghost version of the main character of Natsume's Book of Friends. A teenage boy with blonde hair and brown eyes. He started talking... in perfect Japanese. With floating subtitles appearing in front of him.

He said something with a very calm voice and subtitles read: “Welcome to the Land of Bones and Explosions, Lup.”

The sentence was punctuated by an explosion coming from outside. Lup sprinted to the window to look outside, while Taako said, “Did he call it Land of Bones and Explosions??”

Natsumesprite replied with a calm “yes” while Lup was mesmerised by the view. The majority of the land was barren, with some rocks, mountains and crates. The crates were burning up and sometimes exploded while shooting even more fire up. Between those lied giant skeletons. The bones looked like they were from some kind of turtles. She could see remains that were nearly two stories high.

“Your land is boners and orgasms,” Lup could hear Taako's grin when he said that.

“And the abbreviation is LO **BAE** ,” she said with emphasis and an equal grin.

“Holy shit.”

“Jackpot!”

Natsumesprite looked slightly uncomfortable.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which I project my fandom taste on the twins. (And my inability to use a controller.) I was about to ask if dabbing is still a thing, but I brought up Bae, which has been dead for years. So who cares. 
> 
> Next chapter will be delayed because I need to finish college, which is also why this chapter was delayed.


	14. Leap of Faith

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Davenport went out exploring on his own, getting close to death in that process. A mirage of Magnus appeared to shoo him back home. Unbeknown to Davenport, that was not a mirage. But it was also not the Magnus he knows.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Warning** for major character death.

Magnus watched Davenport sail away. It wasn't his Davenport, technically. His Davenport died alone while nobody knew why he wasn't answering their messages. It wasn't his Davenport but it was still his friend, and he was happy that he prevented a death; a doomed timeline.

He had to leave before Davenport noticed that while the ship he was standing on turned into a mirage, Magnus wouldn't. He stretched out his arms and two floating, wooden wheels appeared at his side. They had a warm glow around them, which got stronger as he put his hands on both of them and spun them in a deliberate way that came natural to him.

From an outside perspective, Magnus disappeared into nothing and didn't reappear for quite some time. From Magnus’ point of view, everything around him changed from one moment to the other. Davenport's house was now several stories high and the underlings around him were a lot stronger. They also had properties he had never seen before. He sighed out in relief, at least in the alpha timeline, his friend didn't die before he was able to enter the Medium. Magnus wanted to visit him so badly, the other person from his circle of friends that he had never met in person. But Magnus was doomed. He could feel death creeping closer and he absolutely needed to stabilise the alpha timeline. There wasn't a lot of time left, despite his affinity for time itself. 

He flew away from the planet, up towards Skaia's hemisphere. Meteorites from the veil were shooting through space, heading for Skaia. They came close to hitting it, and some if them did, but circular gates appeared to redirect the majority of them. Magnus flew to one of these gates before it disappeared again.

Any sane person would think twice about going through an unknown gate within Sburb. He had been burned a few times by entering a gate that he shouldn't have, leading him to a place he wasn't ready to face. They almost lost Barry this way. Luckily, he survived and was able to develop a theory to where Skaia's gates lead to, but it was next to impossible for one of them to test and relay the results. Which didn't mean that they didn't attempt to. Lup was adamant about testing the gates before Magnus would travel back to the alpha timeline and go through with their plan. Their first test shouldn't put the alpha timeline at risk. 

They already had been in a doomed timeline, everyone they knew had been destined to die in very near future. The least they could do was make sure to help their alpha versions before they reach their end. So she flew through the gate. All of them had been waiting for a message from her, any kind of contact. But once she passed the threshold, she simply disappeared. Which either meant that she had died or that she had left the medium to a place or time where she couldn't get in contact with them.

The first option was bad, obviously. Not just because another of his dear friends would have died, but it would also mean that Barry's theory is false and this plan was doomed to fail. It would mean Magnus wouldn’t be able to stabilise the alpha timeline on his own. It would mean another doomed timeline would be created to fix the existing problem, another timeline full of people who would die.

Leaving the medium was what he was hoping to accomplish. Leaving it in a very specific way.

Magnus rushed in. 

The view was breathtaking. Literally, because he was in space. Earth was in front of him, with millions of stars as a backdrop. It was a stunning sight that only few people got to experience in person. Seeing earth from out there put it into perspective what they were all fighting for. They didn't know the final goal of Sburb, but their home had been destroyed by meteorites and this game seemed to be both cause and resolution. 

Magnus knew his life was on a countdown. He would die, and so would the whole world underneath him. As far as their theory goes, so would the whole universe. But he would save the second life and those lives he saved will create something bigger than either of them.

He flew towards Hawaii.

* * *

 

Lucretia had spent the past one and a half hours trying to find out as much as she could from her home and the surrounding perimeter. Davenport had contacted her half an hour ago so they could plan how to proceed. Bringing him up to speed wasn’t a problem. Lucretia kept track of every new information and observation, and Davenport was a quick reader.

Getting any information out of Sburb had been hard. It appears like her sprite was supposed to explain the basics to her, but Camtussprite wasn't able to communicate. Davenport's sprite was slightly more helpful. They lovingly named it Clippysprite, seeing as it was a paperclip with Alexa functionality. But Davenport was more interested in planning instead of documenting everything they could. He promised to give Clippysprite a phone so it could talk to Lucretia later. For now they had to plan ahead.

Lucretia did _not_ agree with that way of thinking. They can't plan ahead if they don't know what's going on! Davenport was convinced that they'd cross that bridge when they get to it.

The first order of operations was alchemisation. Lucretia had experimented with it for some time and was able to figure out some of the alchemisation rules. Getting upgraded devices helped with the process, new devices are made available when someone enters the medium. This made alchemisation a one-step procedure. The previous method forced them to go through the whole process of punching holes into cards and carving cruxite dowels every time they wanted to create a new object. Who thought this was good game design?

Anyway, alchemisation is the first thing everyone needs to do once they're in the medium. A weapon, handsfree communication device and a laptop were the basic necessities. Lucretia tried testing whether or not better armour had any influence on how much damage they take, but the underlings hit right through it. So practical and comfortable clothes were a good idea.

She felt like she had everything written down that she could from the comfort of her home, and considered exploring her planet. After all, it was named Land of Jellyfish and Exploration. Davenport stopped her, though. He thought it was more important for them to find a way to meet each other instead of exploring on their own. There was safety in numbers.

Clippysprite suggested that the gates above each of their houses would lead them to each other. It was had to get further information from it, though. It often refused to give more insight without any indicator to why.

For now they decided to explore the gates. Lucretia had built Magnus’ house high enough to reach the first gate. That wasn't a problem, he had collected enough build grist to raise a whole skyscraper. Lucretia on the other hand spent a lot of grist while improving and experimenting with the alchemiter. She had no other choice than spending some time mindlessly beating up imps, ogres and fuck were those liches?

She now noticed that some underlings had new characteristics. Some ogres seemed shy and stayed away from the fight, something she had only seen from imps. But there was also a new type of enemy emerging out of the woods. The name floating above its head indicated it to be a lich. It was a bipedal creature with a skeletal head that had horns. Her headband, that she alchemised with a computer, notified her of new messages in #general. 

_#general (IPRE), users online: Barry, Davenport, Lucretia, Lup, Magnus (idle), Taako_

 

Lup: so hey good news, one third of the dicksuckers is in the medium

Taako: in courtesy of yours truly

Lucretia: Taako!

Davenport: You're here!

Lucretia: @Magnus, stop talking to your pets for a minute, Taako is here.

Magnus: TAAKO

Magnus: HELL YEAH DUDE

Taako: now thats a worthy welcome

Davenport: We were all worried because we couldn't reach you. It's good to see you're safe.

Lucretia: @everyone New kinds if monsters are appearing: Liches. Server players, make sure to help out your client players to defeat them. They're significantly weaker if they're trapped underneath a fridge.

Taako: wouldnt call that hurricane safe but sure

Taako: so whats the plan

Davenport: We still can't find Merle. Can you make an estimate of how long you can wait?

Taako: you kidding me??? the answer is zero i have to get out here _RIGHT NOW_

Taako: and i want you all to know that i walked thru a literal hurricane

Lup: cant @Magnus be his server player?

Taako: and youre telling me i need to wait??

Taako: for WHAT

Magnus: Sure! I'll head home now. Didn't bring my pc with me

Davenport: Yes, you should do that. Regardless on who will be Taako's server player.

Taako: wdym

Davenport: What?

Taako: what do you mean _regardless of_

Taako: theres nobody else there and im not waiting for merle

Lup: theres no telling when hell make it!!

Lucretia: If Taako and Magnus close the connection, then there won't be anyone who can be Merle's server player.

Taako: tough shit

Lup: we cant leave merle to die

Taako: you can't leave me to die either!!

Davenport: Taako, be honest, how much longer do you believe that you have.

Magnus: I don't want Merle to die either

Lucretia: Nobody wants him to die, but there is a real chance that he won't make it in time. We haven't seen him the whole day and his Saturdays are unpredictable.

Taako: 10 mins

Taako: thats the highest i can bet

Magnus: I'll be home in 3

Davenport: If Merle doesn't make it within the next 8 minutes, Magnus will be your server player.

Lucretia was sitting on top of a flight of stairs that led to the roof. Davenport had tried building her house up to the first gate but had to stop, first because Lucretia ran out of grist, then because he wanted to finish the next #sburb post. The house was still a work in progress, which was fine. Lucretia didn't plan on taking the gate right now. 

_Direct Message with Davenport (online)_

 

Lucretia: We can't leave Merle behind, there has to be something we can do.

Davenport: Barry has tried every possible way to get in contact. It's impossible to get in touch with Merle if he doesn't want to.

Lucretia: He's our friend, we can't just… You know.

Davenport: So is Taako.

Davenport: I don't want to lose Merle either, but we don't know when he gets online.

Lucretia bit her lip. She had forgotten that Merle and Davenport had known each other for years. Other than the twins, the two of them had been the only people who have met in person. It must be hard for him, if Merle wouldn't come online within the next seven minutes he'll be very likely dead.

Something moved in the background of her laptop. Sburb was still open in a background window, and she noticed Magnus who had made it home and was fighting a lich. He had similar problems as she had while fighting one, so she stepped in with her server player powers and picked up a fridge to throw it on top of the lich. Magnus gave a thumbs up to the ceiling.

She watched him take off his Burnshades and captchalogue them, only to get his phone out and start typing.

_Direct Message with Magnus (online) _

 

Magnus: Why does my house look like this

Lucretia: It's to reach the first gate on top of your house. Davenport's sprite, Clippysprite, indicated that it would teleport you to one of the other's planets.

Lucretia: But we don’t know where exactly it would teleport you to. I hope it's near my house, it would be very hard to find you between all those big ass trees. 

Magnus: Shit yeah

Magnus: I asked steven²sprite and he said something cryptic like “it will lead you to your friend”

Magnus: Sounds good to me

Magnus: I'll go through it

Lucretia: Do you have everything you need?

Magnus: I captchalogued a laptop. Anything else?

Lucretia: I don't think so.

Magnus: Great, see you in a moment!

Lucretia watched through the Sburb application as Magnus captchalogued his phone and stepped through the gate. In the same moment as he disappeared from the screen, Lucretia heard a sound from far above her. The blood in her veins froze before she could realise what was going on. The sound came from the gate. The gate that was over two stories above her house. The gate which Magnus stepped through.

Everything happened in bullet time, yet she was not able to react as Magnus fell towards the ground. She could see his face change from confusion to shock. The way he tried to catch himself, to somehow survive the fall. Lucretia heard herself scream, but it wasn't enough to drown out the sound of his body hitting the flat roof.

She had often dreamed how it would be to meet one of her best friends. How tight Magnus would hug her, how safe she would feel in his embrace. Magnus was one of the best people she knew, anyone would be happy to have him as a friend and she had been so excited to meet him in person.

Not even in her worst nightmares could she imagine looking at his lifeless body.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had that scene of Magnus falling into his death planned before I started writing the first chapter of this fic. 
> 
> This was such a dumb idea, but I was convinced at least one of the HS kids died because they didn't expect the gate to spawn them (gasp) up there in the air. They didn't, though. Nobody died by falling to their death after taking a gate. But I knew who had just the right amount of brain-cells and an equal amount of impulse control to die that way.

**Author's Note:**

> hmu @[nachtkissen](https://nachtkissen.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr.


End file.
